John Yard

John was a senior career civil servant in the Inland Revenue with overall responsibility for all their corporate services including IT, Estates, Fleet and Procurement. He was responsible for IT outsourcing and ran the competitions which resulted in the original outsource to EDS and then the re-competition which led to their replacement by Capgemini. He also led the outsource of the Revenue’s property estate to Mapeley.

In addition to letting contracts he has a wide experience of running them once they have been let which gives him a good insight into what can go wrong and the way bids should be managed.

Since leaving the Revenue in 2004 he has operated as consultant to both the client and supplier sides. His experience of running procurements, including devising ITT’s and evaluation criteria allows him to advise bidders of the issues and concerns clients will have and the way in which bidders can alleviate them. He advised both Raytheon on their successful bid for e-borders, and also Atos Origin on their successful bid for DISC in the Ministry of Justice.

His wide experience on both sides of the fence means that he is constantly in demand and he has often been brought in to help resolve problem contracts. Examples include renegotiating the deal between IBM and Defra and acting as a mediator to settle a dispute between BECTA and Microsoft.