LM Supplies Manager Question Regarding Sale Of Ballast

Andy873 said:

In early 1966, the LM Region's Supplies Manager writes to the Estates Department asking for consent for putting up for sale almost 88,000 cubic yards of old ballast on a closed line, which will be put out to competitive tendering. Now I understand why the Estates Dept has to give consent to the sale of this ballast, but why is it left to the Supplies Manager to sell it?

Why isn't the Estates Dept dealing with this sale? or perhaps the Civil Engineering Dept?

Click to expand...

sh24 said:

Maybe the Suppliers Manager (Procurement in 2020’s speak) was considered to have the right commercial skills to maximise value from the sale?

Click to expand...

Magdalia said:

At the time the British Railways Board had a Supplies Committee that was in charge of supplies. This mainly involved purchases (anything from uniforms to sleepers) but also included disposals. It was very bureaucratic, with price thresholds determining which contracts had to go to the BRB Supplies Committee for approval, which had to be reported to the the BRB Supplies Committee, in a report produced every three months, and which could be decided at a regional level, without reference to the BRB Supplies Committee. Each region would have a Supplies Manager, and each regional board probably had its own Supplies Committee too, with another lot of price thresholds.

It was the 1960s bureaucratic way of controlling expenditure. Estates or Civil Engineering wouldn't be dealing with the sale because they were not budget holders and had no power to buy or sell.

Click to expand...