Last week we reported the findings of a survey from the British Chambers of Commerce which showed that price pressures in the UK were running at their highest level for a decade.

Now, official figures have illustrated just how tough things are getting for procurement at a time when the need to achieve demonstrable cost savings is more pressing than ever.

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) manufacturers’ costs rose by a record 20.4 per cent in March, while factory gate prices also got in on the act – finishing the month at a 17-year high.

The reasons for this spike are well-documented and fall largely at the door of spiralling fuel costs, which last week hit a fresh high (yes another) of $112.21 a barrel.

The news will be hardly be welcomed to those in procurement (although the confirmation of what is blindingly obvious will hardly come as a surprise), but it’s unlikely that the governor of the Bank of England will be raising a glass to the figures either.

After all, the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee bowed to public (and private) pressure last week to cut interest rates in the UK by a further quarter of one per cent, as businesses, and a government that appears to going the same way as the Titanic, looked desperately for an immediate solution to what is, quite clearly, a long-term problem.

"Ongoing elevated producer price inflation in March highlights the fact that the Bank of England cannot afford to relax on the inflation front and suggests that the Bank continues to have limited scope to cut interest rates — for now, at least,” Howard Archer, chief UK & European economist at Global Insight, said after last week’s decision.

Tougher ones lie ahead.