Agenda item

To receive a report from Claire Reilly, Head of Procurement, Resources & People.

Claire Reilly, Head of Procurement, Resources & People introduced the report

NOTED:

1.    The report provides an update on the Contract Procedure Rules (CPR’), Waivers and Procurement Spend covering the period April 2020 to March 2021.

2.    The report covers; the continued improved management of waivers; the reduction in exceptions; the need to review CPR’s in line with UK procurement regulations and an improvement plan for the future for procurement services.

3.    In terms of Brexit the CPR’s remain valid. Once the UK government decide what the regulations and rules will be around UK procurement. The CPR’s will be updated to be in line with these.

4.    The CPR’s were updated and refreshed in July 2020 in line with the updating of the Constitution. Extensive training and awareness have taken place to ensure officers are aware of the CPR’s.

5.    The number of waivers has greatly reduced over the last 5 years. In 2014/15 there were around 40, in the last 3 years there were not any and this year there has been one. The one waiver is detailed under paragraph 22 of the report.

6.    The number of exceptions has also reduced and is detailed in paragraphs 23-27 of the report.

7.    In terms of the procurement spend overall there was an increase for third parties in total spend but a decrease in number of spends via purchase orders.

8.    The spend with Small to Medium Enterprises and local suppliers was slightly down in line with spend across purchase orders.

9.    Work is being undertaken with Economic Development to look at how the council can support local businesses with a ‘Keeping It Local’ toolkit. Raising awareness has been undertaken with officers across the council to use local suppliers wherever possible.

10.  Paragraph 35 details how local value is measured.

11.  The council is moving to a more strategic and partnering approach with the introduction of Category Management model and is detailed under paragraph 33- 43 in the report.

12.  A new Sustainable and Ethical procurement policy is being drafted and is due to go to Cabinet in July.

13. A Social Value portal will be implemented, that will support the monitoring and reporting of social value leveraged through procurement contracts.

Questions, comments and queries raised:

·         What were the main themes of the Green Paper on the new procurement arrangements? Officers advised that the main themes were reducing bureaucracy with one set of rules for everything; reducing the routes to market to three and there is a drive for transparency and creating a central body to oversee procurement, monitor procurement activity and ensure that good practice is being maintained. Following a query, it was confirmed that the Green Paper did not state that frameworks will end.

·         How does the new Contract Manager role fit in with the restructure of the service? Part of this role will be support services across the council to embed a better culture of contract management and support the facilitation through training and raising awareness setting expectation around what good contract management should look like.

·         Clarification was requested on how P cards are monitored. Officers confirmed that there is a rigorous approach to card application, a business case must be completed, the levels of spend are set at a transaction level and an accumulative level across a monthly period. The monthly statement on each card must be reconciled. Exchequer Services also run regular monitoring activity and review any transaction over £1k. The Executive Director, Finance also reviews the data from time to time.

·          A request was agreed that a report could come to a future committee meeting on when contracts are extended rather than go out to procurement, and that this will also cover frameworks with only one supplier. It was suggested that this comes back to the committee in the Autumn and

AGREED to the contents of the report.