Issue - meetings

The report of the Director – Finance and Corporate Services is attached.

It was RESOLVED that:

a)               the Procurement Strategy 2022 to 2025/26 (Appendix A) be adopted; and

b)               any changes to the Strategy until 2025/26 be delegated to the Director – Finance and Corporate Service, in consultation with both the Council’s Monitoring Officer and Portfolio Holder for Finance and Customer Access.

The Cabinet Portfolio Holder for Finance and Customer Access, Councillor Moore presented the report of the Director – Finance and Corporate Services providing an update on the Council’s Procurement Strategy for 2022/23 to 2025/26.

Councillor Moore advised that the report set out the Council’s procurement objectives for the next four years and had been written with the support of Welland Procurement, an organisation which advised many councils on best practice and national initiatives and was already advising the Council on its current major projects.  Reference was made to the current Government Green Paper “Transforming Public Procurement” and Councillor Moore stated that the Government’s aim was to speed up and simplify processes, place value for money at the heart of it, and increase opportunities.

Cabinet noted that the Strategy was a high level statement of principles and policies and was subject to the Council’s Financial Regulations, Contract Standing Orders and supported by the Council’s Internal Procurement Toolkit, which set out procurement methods and practices.  The Strategy set out key principles, which would enable the Council to demonstrate its leadership, commitment to being commercial through its adherence to social and environmental issues, in particular climate issues, details of which were highlighted in the Strategy.  

In conclusion, Councillor Moore confirmed that he agreed with all of the key principles outlined in this comprehensive Strategy and welcomed the input and support of Welland Procurement.

In seconding the recommendation, Councillor Brennan also welcomed the input from Welland Procurement in drafting this comprehensive document, which clearly addressed a range of issues and set out the Council’s vision to secure the widest possible benefits from its procurement processes, in terms of value, social and environmental issues and engaging with local businesses.

Councillor Brennan advised that having read many papers on public procurement over the years, it was noted that Governments of all persuasions had attempted to use public procurement to secure a range of wider benefits, and she considered that the entire process had inherent contradictions in respect of securing value for money, whilst also trying to secure wider social, environmental, and small business benefits.  Cabinet noted that be definition, in seeking to secure some of those additional benefits, it detracted from the core objective of seeking value for money.

Councillor Brennan commented that in her experience, all Governments wanted to encourage local businesses to procure from the public sector; however, due to the economies of scale, larger suppliers usually succeed in securing any contracts.  Reference was made to the EU procurement rules, which were very complex and had disadvantaged small and local businesses and it was hoped going forward that a new national policy framework would provide a way for public bodies to secure value for money and additional benefits that opening up public contracts could deliver.

In conclusion, Councillor Brennan stated that how “best value” was measured would be key and it was hoped that this Government’s Strategy would bring about a sensible reconciliation of those tensions. 

The Leader reiterated the importance of ensuring a  ...  view the full minutes text for item 53