Mike Cleaton manages the Public Sector Resourcing framework for contingent labor primarily across the UK’s central government. PSR, a single-provider managed service, manages 21,000 workers and is on track to impact £1.2 billion of government spending this year.

The program has been “hugely” affected by the pandemic, according to Cleaton. “Over the course of the last 18 months, we’ve doubled the size of the program,” he says. Some of that is due to the UK’s withdrawal from the EU and some to the Covid-19 pandemic because “when many organizations were having to close down, the public sector was busier than ever.”

Cleaton’s procurement team of 14 people did an amazing job supporting the UK’s Covid test-and-trace program, building a team of 72 recruiters, including an on-site team, in a matter of weeks with AMS. The program went from a standing start to supplying some 1,700 workers in a matter of months and continues to provide strong support to the test-and-trace program that is still very prevalent in the UK.  “I am incredibly proud of both the response of my team, AMS and the key subcontractor for operational resources, Brookstreet. In a time of national crisis we worked together as one team to deliver across a huge variety of very urgent volume requirements with constantly moving goalposts,” Cleaton says.

Cleaton also oversaw the implementation of a new statement-of-work program, which went live in August. While it is still too early to pinpoint its impact, he believes it has the potential to add value to “hundreds of millions of third party expenditure” as it expands and delivers value to more customers and clients.

Looking forward, he is also taking a big look at expanding solutions out to the wider public sector, with a strong focus on local government.