Procurement Policy 2025 to 2029 - including the Social Value statement - Looking forward and next steps

The delivery of this Procurement Policy is ambitious, and we acknowledge that investment, development and training will be needed if we are to achieve everything we have set out.

It will take a whole Council approach as it cannot be delivered by procurement alone. However, through our team and with our business partner model, and support from directorates, we believe we can bring about the custom and practice and cultural changes needed to achieve delivery over the next 4 years.

It is vitally important that we can identify clear impacts/outcomes, and the resulting procurement benefits, and showcase these, both internally and externally, as a benchmark to our success.

We will:

• learn from experience, continually monitor and implement new legislation and guidance, minimise any gaps between established and emerging best practices
• be commercial in our outlook
• routinely carry out post tender award reviews ‘wash ups’ to capture lessons learnt – (what went well, and what can be improved upon)
• further develop and maintain the Council contracts register as a central repository to inform procurement plans and support transparency
• undertake procurement and key contract spend analysis to inform contract management routines and future procurements (seeking to optimise local spend, whilst attempting to minimise/balance off low value, long ‘tail-end’ spend)
• develop and monitor key performance measures and benefits tracking
• develop and maintain national procurement networks – continue to share and learn best practices
• work with partners to create an environment that promotes community wealth building and establishment of an Anchor Institution
• undertake staff procurement skills assessments to inform training and development plans

Through implementation of this policy, the Council will be very well placed to deliver high-quality public services with health and wellbeing at the heart of what it does, ensuring improvements in outcomes and the maximisation of social value initiatives and environmental sustainability/enhancement within its local economies.