A former steel director is set to take charge of a brand new company tasked with saving police forces across England and Wales time and money.
Lianne Deeming has been appointed as the Chief Executive Officer of BlueLight Commercial, leading a growing team advising police forces on how to make the most of their procurement needs.
Mrs Deeming said, “BlueLight Commercial provides an opportunity to develop the core success that procurement teams have already delivered on behalf of the 43 police forces. The ambition is for BlueLight Commercial to become the police forces’ trusted partner and the ‘Go To’ organisation for commercial categories and services.”
The Home Office has made clear that policing must strive for greater efficiency in return for increased Government investment. BlueLight Commercial aims to drive this by addressing issues of duplication across forces’ procurement departments, and by driving down prices with suppliers.
Mrs Deeming continued, “We want to create an integrated vision which drives the commercial focus going forward, aligned to the 2025 Policing Vision, with strong category strategies. Achieving that is about providing best practice approaches for end-to-end commercial processes; giving clarity to local, regional and national procurement and contract management practices.”
Mrs Deeming, who has more than 30 years’ experience in the steel industry, including as Chief Procurement Officer at Tata Steel Europe, applied for the new CEO role because it brings together various skills and experiences from her career to date. She has delivered significant transformations achieving more than £1bn in savings, and set up her own company – but it is her operational experience that enables her to understand the requirements of end users.
And from day one at BlueLight Commercial’s offices in Birmingham, she wants to engage with policing in an open and transparent way to quickly understand their current needs.
She said, “We want to be able to provide agile responses and develop solutions to current key issues such as supply chain risk arising from COVID-19.
“We want to identify and share the best practices that already exist across forces, while continuing to deliver on the agreed savings commitments, and prioritising the development and implementation of strategies in key areas such as fleet and aviation, people and professional services, and operations.”
Matthew Scott, the Police and Crime Commissioner for Kent and chair of the BlueLight Commercial Board, said, “I am delighted that we have been able to appoint Lianne to the position of Chief Executive Officer. She was an exemplary candidate who will help policing achieve even greater value for money.”
