Agenda item

To receive the report of Michael Sprosson, Head of Procurement and Claire Reilly, Head of Policy & Contract Development.

RECEIVED the report of Michael Sprosson, Head of Procurement and Claire Reilly, Head of Policy & Contract Development.

NOTED

1.    The report provides an update on the implementation on the Sustainable and Ethical Procurement Policy, including information on how Procurement Services is supporting local business suppliers.

2.    This item had last been discussed at the Equalities Board meeting on 15 July 2021, at which time officers from Procurement Services shared information on the development of a new Sustainable & Ethical Procurement Policy to replace the previous policy which expired in 2019.

3.    Development of a new policy was timely to update it to align with and drive refreshed organisational priorities, as set out in the Council Plan, Climate Action Plan and Fairer Enfield.

4.    From the extensive consultation and engagement carried out with stakeholders there was broad support for the new policy and Cabinet approved the policy in February 2022.

5.    The key features of the new Sustainable and Ethical Procurement Policy are summarised in the report and focus on four priority areas: social value, ethical practices, supporting the local economy and climate action.

6.    In each of these areas the policy sets out Enfield Council’s commitments as a commissioner and the expectations of suppliers. This includes a framework for minimum, enhanced and preferred standards for specific areas in sustainable and ethical procurement.

7.    The framework also details what a supplier should do as a minimum when seeking to work with the Council, and includes enhanced standards, which go beyond these minimum requirements, and preferred standards which are considered best practice.

8.    Where suppliers or those bidding for contracts do not yet meet minimum standards, the Council will support these organisations by signposting them to relevant information and guidance to ensure that they can meet them in the future.

9.    The new policy also has specific areas relating to equalities, diversity & inclusion. These are: Labour and enforcement practices, Equality and Diversity and Modern Slavery.

10. Following Cabinet approval, the new policy has been presented at the Senior Leadership Forum to provide an overview of the policy across the organisation. Training and induction sessions are also available on the Council’s training platform for officers to support implementation and understanding of the policy. It has also been promoted in Staff Matters, on the Council’s website and the internal Procurement Services microsite.

11. New templates and toolkits have been introduced to support contract managers, including templates for contract meetings which include monitoring of delivery of social value, sustainable and equalities and diversity and inclusion for each contract.

12. The report detailed spend over the past three years and illustrated the top ten local suppliers alongside some headline information for each of these.

The following comments and questions were raised:

(i)             In response to a question from Cllr Georgiou as to what defines a local or non-local supplier, Claire Reilly, Head of Policy & Contract Development advised that from a point of spend, the current measure is based on the payee being registered in the borough.

(ii)            Following a further query with regards to procurement and other authorities investing locally, it was advised that this seems to be the drive, however, members were reminded that local procurement is not necessarily the cheapest or most cost effective.

(iii)          Cllr Pratt referred to Meridian Water which accounts for a large part of the expenditure across the council for the next few years, with procurement frameworks already in place with regards to the local supply change, and therefore asked what the projections were for 2024/25 and 2025/26. Officers advised that a number of issues had been addressed at Meridian Water under the broad social value approach and local supply chain but acknowledged that further analysis was needed in terms of what this meant for local business going forward.

(iv)          Simon Gardner, Regeneration Director added some further clarity regarding Meridian Water and said that in terms of permanency, even when it was ‘built out’ services would still need to be provided therefore meaningful social value would always be a requirement when going out to market.

(v)           Cllr Dyson sought clarification on the local procurement contract data (14%) detailed in the report and officers provided further explanation and clarification regarding this.

(vi)          With regards to labour and employment, equality and diversity and modern slavery, Cllr Georgiou felt that it would be useful if future reports stated what is above and beyond legislative ask and if preferred, what is the minimum requirement as it was important for members to be able to understand this distinction.

(vii)         The Chair, Cllr Erbil said that he was pleased to hear that Enfield Council is supporting businesses through guidance and advice but asked to what extent ethnic minority businesses in the borough are being supported. Officers advised that this was a work in progress and recognised that more could be done. Online guidance needed to be reviewed to make it easier for businesses to understand how the Council works and where the opportunities are. More engagement with organisations such as Enfield Enterprise was needed alongside targeted work in certain areas of the borough where further support and guidance was required.

(viii)       Cllr Sampson sought clarification regarding the reference in the report to under-represented groups and asked which groups were being targeted. Officers advised that this was very much dependent on what the contract and market was as in some markets, for example, construction, diversity of the workforce was quite broad. However, each contract/market is different therefore it is about identifying under-represented groups and targeting them to make the most difference.

(ix)          The Chair re-iterated his point about ethnic minority businesses and asked if they were being provided with the same advice and guidance as that mentioned on page 14, item 19 of the report, as he felt that some of the terminology used would be alien to ethnic minority led businesses where English might be an obstacle. Officers noted this point and again acknowledged that some further work was required to identify and reach out to these groups.

(x)           Cllr Pratt referred to the local supply chain and how Enfield Council could work with ethnic minority groups more broadly. He said that in theory the supply change needs to be pre-qualified in some way, but this can be a major issue, and asked therefore how this could be addressed. Officers responded by saying that they are looking at ways to reduce barriers for small businesses, for example the financial test, and making it proportionate to the contract and breaking it down into smaller lots and demystifying procurement by losing the jargon and keeping it in plain language as much possible.  

(xi)          Bevin Betton, Chair, Enfield Racial Equality Council felt that it was important to encourage local firms to partner with larger firms to then allow them to bid for contracts. He went on to say that it was important that any contractor did not just have a policy that was gathering dust on the shelf, but there needed to be practical implementation and monitoring. Officers acknowledged this point and said that the only way to ensure this was by contract management and monitoring which would require onsite visits to review and gather evidence. However due to lack of resource the Procurement Service was currently not able to do this, but this could possibly be a bigger piece of work for the council going forward.

The Chair thanked Officers for their informative and interesting update.