Issue - meetings

To consider the attached report giving an update from the Strategic Procurement Team. 

Richard Howroyd – Head of Strategic Procurement and Commissioning introduced the report and gave a presentation on ‘Strategic Procurement Update’ which covered the following:

·  Working Together to Bring Down Costs

·  Corporate Contracts

·  Goods and Services Panel

·  Contracts Register

·  Supplying the South West

·  Keeping the Contract Register up to date

·  GDPR and Contracts

·  Draft National Procurement Strategy

·  Procurement Templates

·  Current Issues/Risks

·  Financial Risk Assessment

 Panel members made the following points and asked the following questions:

Councillor Furse asked about the Contracts Register (page 51) and how we deal with contractors that were not on it. The officer explained that there had been challenges in some areas such as individual social care contracts. It can be challenging where there was no signed contract. There have been robust discussions with commissioners.

Councillor Moss stated that value should be important as well as cost. He was concerned that the Social Value Act is not referred to enough and that sometimes small local businesses are being knocked out by national organisations. The officer explained that the Act is taken seriously and 5% are awarded on social value. He added that it would be helpful if members helped to spread the message that businesses must take time and effort on their submissions as any omissions cannot be dealt with at the bid stage. He noted that in a recent procurement, a Government Department has deduced 5% of grant funding for favouring local providers contrary to the Public Contract Regulations which the Council disputes.

Lisa O Brien asked if contracts are monitored and if problems were found, break clauses were included. The officer explained that the big issue had been around social care contracts where providers had not had to go to the market for a long time. Other authorities have had similar issues. A lot of good work is being done and we make sure standards are kept.