IESE Procurement Theme e-Newsletter 21 June 2010
Date: Monday 21/06/10
Welcome to IESE Procurement Theme e-Newsletter for June 2010.
For more information click on the link to read more.
June 2010
Welcome to the Improvement and Efficiency South East
Procurement e-newsletter for June 2010
Introduction
In this newsletter we aim to give the latest updates on what’s happening in Procurement and give you an opportunity to raise questions, enquire about a particular project or indeed get involved with the numerous projects we are working on.
Feedback
We welcome your feedback on any aspect of this newsletter. Please send any ideas and thoughts to John Lee on john.lee@southeastiep.gov.uk
Sections in this edition:
1. Collaborative Procurement Hubs Programme
2. Training and Development
3. Launch of Collaborative Sourcing Intelligence – ‘The Public Sector Price Checker’
4. Transform
5. National Structure on Procurement
6. Spot Light on Spend
7. Best Deals Service – Update on the Best Deals Project including the Professional Services Workshop and the Fleet Workshop.
8. Case Studies
9. South East Business Portal
10. News Items – Light Bites or Quick Wins
• OGC now part of the Efficiency and Reform Group
• OCG News – OGC e-Auctions
• OGC News – Budget 2010 Special News Item
11. Sussex Hubs Development
12. The IESE Procurement Team
SECTION ONE
COLLABORATIVE PROCUREMENT HUBS PROGRAMME
IESE has provided pump-prime funding for a number of Collaborative Procurement Hubs across the South East over the last 2 years. The models applied vary in scope and scale, but so far have shown to be successful in achieving the main aim of cashable savings. Funding provided so far totals around £300k whereas the achieved savings so far are nearing £3mln. There is a clear indication that the savings are increasing and will grow exponentially in year 3. Other benefits have been non-cashable efficiencies through minimising duplication, use of frameworks and increased procurement capability in the respective Hub regions.
A lot of Hub work has been about jointly using and committing to existing frameworks – especially around commodity items – but also some new joint tenders and a move to dealing with more strategic spend categories (e.g. waste, social care, insurance, prompt payments). Over the last year, we have seen Hubs that have expanded their membership, are rethinking their model and sub-regions that have started new collaborative initiatives in the form of Hubs. Finally, Hubs have started to share good practice and ideas across their sub-regional boundaries, which has been seen as a positive development to further benefit the wider South East region in the difficult times ahead for the public sector.
All Hubs have dedicated staffs that are shared across member Authorities of the Hubs to enable collaboration and integrative procurement workplans as much as possible to ensure a pro-active approach. Some other critical success factors are: having appropriate governance (including senior management), solid benefits tracking methodologies, and last but not least the positive efforts of the staff within the Hubs who make it all happen.
For more information on the Hubs and/or contact details of the Hubs, please contact: elmer.bakker@southeastiep.gov.uk
SECTION TWO
TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
IESE has initiated and supported a South East project group that is looking at putting in place a regional procurement training solution. A project group has been set up with representation across the South East. The group, led by Hampshire County Council, builds on existing good practices from amongst others Portsmouth, Scotland and Wales and has from its inception had a very positive and enthusiastic approach to working collaboratively across the South East.
“I think this project provides a fantastic opportunity for all Local Authorities in the region to be able to access a formal procurement training programme which has been specifically designed to meet the demanding and ever changing needs of public sector procurement.
Local Authorities face increasing pressure to deliver efficiencies through procurement whilst maintaining and improving the quality of services. I believe the development of this structured training programme will provide the key knowledge and skills required to enable procurement officers to successfully meet this challenge."
Alison Riley, Procurement Development Officer at Hampshire County Council is the lead officer on the South East project group.
The aim is to have a framework in place with a training offering consisting of core and specialist modules and which is accredited by the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS). The aim is that this can be accessed by all Councils in the South East – either in whole or in part and it should be in place by the summer of 2010.
Also, recently a FREE Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) 3 day training session has finished. The training was delivered by Action Sustainability within an arrangement with DEFRA and followed an international and UN programme content of the Marrakech Taskforce. The course has helped towards the awareness of sustainability in public procurement but with a practical take to embed the thinking into Councils’ strategy and processes. Staff from 11 Councils took part and County, Unitary and Districts were all represented.
For more information on the South East training solution, contact: elmer.bakker@southeastiep.gov.uk or Alison.riley@hants.gov.uk.
For more information on the SPP course, please contact: elmer.bakker@southeastiep.gov.uk
SECTION THREE
LAUNCH OF COLLABORATIVE SOURCING INTELLIGENCE – ‘THE PUBLIC SECTOR PRICE CHECKER’
IESE to publish best-value contracts worth millions
Improvement and Efficiency South East (IESE) has partnered with EGS in a landmark project to open up the world of public sector procurement.
Details of hundreds of supplier catalogues and best-value contracts let by public sector buying consortia – worth millions of pounds annually – are to be made accessible via a dedicated web portal to all 74 local authorities in the South East of England.
Contracts from existing buying consortia will feature in the searchable online directory, enabling both procurement professionals and budget holders to find ready-approved contracts at negotiated prices. The portal will drive efficiency, avoid duplication and reduce non-contract expenditure.
Details of catalogues and contracts will be available free of charge on a view-only basis to every council via a secure log-in. Councils will have the added advantage of being able to download catalogues, which will be managed and maintained by EGS.
“EGS is delighted to partner with IESE in this ground-breaking project to effectively ‘open source’ some of this valuable information in one place. It’s a great example of ‘joined up procurement’ to enhance efficiency,” comments Peter Whent, EGS Chief Executive.
“IESE believe the tool that is being developed in Partnership with EGS will transform the Procurement architecture for Local Government and other Public Sector bodies. It will bring true transparency and direct access to available contacts while delivering future management information to allow aggregation and consolidation where it is appropriate,” says Steve Dunkerley, Assistant Director, Improvement and Efficiency South East.
The portal can be accessed by local authority officers here: https://www.sourcingintelligence.co.uk
SECTION FOUR
TRANSFORM – ‘STRENGTH IN NUMBERS’
Improvement and Efficiency South East (IESE) in partnership with SpikesCavell have launched an exciting and significant programme of activity to identify and deliver bottom line savings to all public sector bodies in the South East.
The TRANSFORM programme will collaborate with local government, education, health, police, fire and emergency services as well as registered social landlords – more than 260 public bodies. We anticipate the total spend could well exceed £9billion with local government spend accounting for ¾ of this total. Our initial work will focus on understanding public sector expenditure after which we will begin to map where opportunities and gaps exist for making crucial savings. Once we have the data, we can then begin to work with each public sector body to assess and implement a host of tools and solutions to release short, medium and long term efficiencies.
For the South East, it is estimated that the cost savings is around £320million.
Phase 1
The first phase of this programme will be the local government strand. We ask each of the 74 local authorities in the South East to provide their external spend data (for financial year 2009-2010) for analysis to SpikesCavell and in return we will fully fund this exercise with user licences for each participating authority. Furthermore, each authority will have access to the SpikesCavell online Observatory including the tools Measure, Monitor and Analyse.
As of June 2010, we can confirm that over 40 local authorities have submitted their data and over 20 have now been published on the Observatory. If you would like to take part in this exciting new venture please contact Elmer on elmer.bakker@southeastiep.gov.uk or Momtaz on Momtaz.islam@southeastiep.gov.uk
SECTION FIVE
NATIONAL STRUCTURE ON PROCUREMENT
A report has gone to the IESE Regional Directors Group with key recommendations on proposed structure of procurement for the public sector. The paper was not intended to be a comprehensive statement of all procurement-related activities RIEPs should be undertaking. Nor was it an audit report of current activity. It was intended to be a document that highlighted good practice in some regions and formed the basis of a “minimum offering” that all regions should work towards.
This has then been given to a smaller group of Assistant Directors to develop the six key recommendations further, these are:
• Spend analysis
• E-auctions/e-procurement
• Supplier Relationship Management/Horizon Scanning
• Best value
• PBOs (professional buying organizations)
• SME agenda
We will keep you informed on progress as we continue to develop the strategy. In the meantime for further details please contact Steve Dunkerley on steve.dunkerley@southeastiep.gov.uk
SECTION SIX
SPOTLIGHT ON SPEND
This tool meets the requirements of the new Government which has demanded that local authorities publish data for any spend over £500. The tool comes directly out of the TRANSFORM programme which IESE has developed with Spikes Cavell hence will not cause extra work for authorities who have already provided data to the program.
Spot Light On Spend can be accessed via this site: http://www.spotlightonspend.org.uk/
Authorities that are already on their way to making their spend visible are: Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead; Guildford Borough Council and Waverley Council.
For more information please contact Steve on steve.dunkerley@southeastiep.gov.uk
SECTION SEVEN
BEST DEALS SERVICE
Updated Consultancy Review:
The Best Deals Service has updated the South East Consultancy Review to highlight the latest information on the IESE Environmental Consultancy Framework. The Consultancy review examines the work carried out by organisations such as the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) Professional Services Team and IDE&A. Providing detailed summaries of toolkits, best practice guidance and information on some of the largest consultancy spend area frameworks.
For a full copy of the review, please follow the link:
Latest Reviews:
Training Services and the Gas & Electricity reviews are the latest reviews to be carried out by the Best Deals Service. The approach taken in both of these reviews is to highlight the frameworks that are accessible by local authorities across the South East. Furthermore the reviews will provide information on toolkits and best practice guidance that will help local authorities understand and manage spend more effectively.
Details of these reviews once completed will be available on the Best Deals webpage.
Future Workshops:
For local authorities finding more effective ways of reducing spend and achieve greater savings and efficiencies is a top priority. The Best Deals Service will be holding series of workshops to help local authorities implement effective changes resulting in efficiencies and savings. The workshops will focus on 4 of the largest spend areas:
• Telecoms
• ICT
• Facilities Management
• Waste Commodities
It is hoped that the series of workshops will provide effective tools and guidance that will result in real tangible benefits.
If you would like further information on any of the work that the Best deals service is involved in please contact Manaza Qasam on 07912194848 or email on manaza.qasam@southeastiep.gov.uk
SECTION EIGHT
CASE STUDIES
We are continually adding new case studies which showcase best practice across the South East. The latest additions include:
- collaborative procurement of legal services
- added value of procurement training
- collaboration on prompt payments
- collaborative procurement of insurance
You can download the case studies here: http://www.southeastiep.gov.uk/case-studies
We have added a new case study to the Best Deals Project, showcasing the excellent work from Gloucestershire County Council regarding the roll out of the Consultancy Value Programme. The link to this case study is here:
SECTION NINE
SOUTH EAST BUSINESS PORTAL
Usage of the South East Business Portal continues to grow rapidly. A typical week sees the loading of 10 new Opportunities, 20 new Contracts, 175 new Suppliers registered, and 5 new Users. The average number of visits to the Portal is 3000 per week, reading 25,000 pages.
We now have over 800 registered Local Authority Users across the South East. New functionality has been implemented, with Local Authorities now able to run reverse E-Auctions, to load standardised Pre-Qualification Questionnaires (that Suppliers can pre-populate, and that Users can assess online). We will shortly be releasing functionality that enables Tier 1 Suppliers to sub-contract via the system.
Local Authority User Guides and full Portal activity reports are now posted in the ‘Documents’ section of the Portal – Viewable by all registered Local Authority Users.(After log-in)
A news panel on the home page will be available shortly for Local Authorities to post information about Public Procurement of interest to other local Authorities and also Suppliers. There will also be improved menus to enable the simple searching of redundant Opportunities and Contracts.
An early news article will be regarding ProContract Use in the South East (ProContract is an e-tendering solution integrated to the portal) – We currently have six of the South East Local Authorities using this system, with a further six planning to implement.
The growth of registered Suppliers continues, with over 16,500 Suppliers registered on the Portal, over 50% based in the South East. Business Support Kent are holding another round of Quality Management, Consortia building, and Bid writing workshops over the next two months. All South East based registered Suppliers have been given the opportunity to attend these free workshops. A new Customer Services contact process has been implemented to enable Suppliers and Users to log calls simply – See ‘Contact Us’ on the Portal.
We continue to work with the Office of Government Commerce with the new National Opportunities Portal, which will be released later this year, integrated to the South East Business Portal.
The South East Business Portal can save considerable expense and time Local Authorities by providing free opportunity advertising, saving Officer time locating Contract information, and by reducing Freedom of Information requests.
We are delighted that John Lee (IESE) is helping support the South East Business Portal by taking Customer Service calls.
To view the Portal, just enter ‘South East Business Portal’ to leading Search engines.
To view “Contact Us”, please click on this link
SECTION TEN
LIGHT BITES NEWS ITEMS OR QUICK WINS
OGC CENTRE FOR E-AUCTIONS
OGC published its Forward Plan for e-Auctions, which aims to save the public sector up to £270m by the end of 2011/12. Find out more information by clicking on the following link:
http://www.ogc.gov.uk/About_OGC_news_10098.asp
Alongside the publication of the plan OGC has launched a pilot website to provide information on public sector e-auctions which can be found at http://www.ogceauctioncentre.co.uk/
Find out more information about the “forward plan” by clicking on the following link:
http://www.ogceauctioncentre.co.uk/home/how-we-work-with-you/future-eauctions/
BUDGET 2010 SPECIAL NEWS ITEM
There are a number of developments in the Budget relevant to procurement and the wider commercial agenda for which OGC is responsible, working with Departments and the public sector. This highlights the critical role public sector organisations can play in delivering value for money savings through our commercial activities, as well as the potential for procurement to deliver future growth. These developments include:
• Measures related to SMEs in public procurement
• Prompt Payment improvements
• Using procurement for growth
• Consultation launch of the Policy through Procurement supplier charter
• Publication of public sector procurement expenditure data
• Extending the remit of the Centre for Expertise in Sustainable Procurement into the wider public sector
• Relocating civil service posts out of London and the South East
• Impletementing an e-tendering Guide
• Fleet Good Practice Guide – “Demand Management” Published
For more information click the following link: http://www.ogc.gov.uk/whats_new_budget_2010.asp
SECTION ELEVEN
SUSSEX HUBS DEVELOPMENT
Following the publication of the IESE sponsored Procurement Resource Analysis in 2009; authorities in East and West Sussex are striving to implement the key findings.
Three key collaborative activities are now taking place in the sub-region. In West Sussex there are two collaborations taking place; between Arun and Chichester and with Horsham, Crawley, and Mid- Sussex. Both projects are currently seeking to recruit staff and implement agreed work programmes.
In East Sussex, four authorities, Eastbourne, Hastings, Rother, and Wealden, are establishing a formal procurement hub arrangement. Following agreement on a formal PID in March 2010 arrangements are now taking place to implement the action plan, including the recruitment of a procurement hub officer. The project board acknowledged the desire to commence the project immediately and agreed that resources from East Sussex County Council and Wealden District council would be used to implement key areas of the PID in the interim period.
One main area of benefit was the support provided in assisting hub members to contribute to the Transform Spend Analysis project. As a consequence of this all four hub members have now had their data published. This will be key to production of a hub procurement programme by the end of July 2010. Similarly, the process of member authorities adopting five key best deals is underway and by early July all with have their contract data submitted on the SEBP.
SECTION TWELVE
THE IESE PROCUREMENT TEAM
Steve Dunkerley, Assistant Director,
steve.dunkerley@southeastiep.gov.uk
Gerry Palmer, Procurement Partnership Lead,
gerry.palmer@wealden.gov.uk
Momtaz Islam, Project Manager,
Momtaz.islam@southeastiep.gov.uk
Elmer Bakker, Procurement Development Manager,
elmer.bakker@southeastiep.gov.uk
Patrick Abrahams, South East Business Portal Manager,
patrick.abrahams@southeastiep.gov.uk
Manaza Qasam, Project Co-ordinator,
manaza.qasam@southeastiep.gov.uk
John Lee, Project Support Officer,
john.lee@southeastiep.gov.uk
