Agenda item

The Panel considered the latest draft of the Corporate Procurement Strategy.

The Head of Commercial provided Members with a demonstration of the Power BI procurement dashboard which gave information on how much the Council spent with third parties and where this money was spent.  It also showed the main providers and suppliers and the trend of spend.

The Strategic Director of Commercial and Change noted that the procurement dashboard would be shared with the Panel in due course.  It provided real time information and would also be available to local suppliers.  The importance of maintaining compliance in a changing world was noted.  The country had now left the EU and the Council needed to be in a good place to take advantage of new opportunities.

Members were given an opportunity to ask questions and the following main points were raised:

·       It was noted that the environment for corporate procurement changed frequently with the latest challenges being inflationary and supply chain pressures.  In response to a question about what was being done by the Council to mitigate these pressures, the Strategic Director noted that, in general, the Council did not buy things with direct inflationary pressures.  Instead, the Council would be buying a care home place or letting a contract for an infrastructure project.  It was important that the procurement strategy reflected this.  However, it was also noted that contracts with no allowance for inflationary uplift may create pressure on suppliers.  In this situation, contract management was key.

·       60% of the Council’s spend was on social care and it was important to recognise the issues caused by pay inflation and staff shortages.

·       The advantages and disadvantages of buying-in a service against providing it in-house were discussed.  It was confirmed that the majority of the Council’s legal work was undertaken by in-house lawyers.

·       It was suggested that by spending more of the Council’s budget with local firms, this money would be kept in the local economy.  Members were reminded that, above a certain threshold, the Council should not show favouritism to local companies, although adding the requirement for a company to demonstrate social value would make it more logical for a local firm to be chosen.

·       A question was asked about whether it was possible to monitor the environmental record of companies being employed.  The Panel was informed that it was the intention to introduce carbon footprint management for suppliers, with the Council offering support and advice on carbon footprint mapping.  The Commercial Team was working with the Sustainability Team and it was hoped that this would start this year.

·       A Member suggested that there was a need for a commercial approach to be embedded across the culture of the organisation with staff being encouraged to become more commercially minded.  In response, the Strategic Director suggested that a commercial focus may not be appropriate for the majority of the council’s staff who were working in social care.  There was a fine balance and, although staff could be asked to consider the commercial implications of their work, this should not be at the expense of their primary role.