Agenda item

(Director of Resources) To consider the attached report (FPM-028-2014/15).

The Procurement Manager presented a report on the Procurement Strategy for 2015-20. The current strategy was due to expire at the end of March 2015 and was in need of reviewing. The new Procurement Strategy for 2015-20 had been updated to reflect how procurement could support the delivery of the Council’s new Corporate Plan 2015-2020 as well as including the recent Public Contract Regulations 2015, that would have a major impact on all public procurement over the coming years.

The Procurement Manager advised that other authorities had fallen foul by not following procurement procedures and this had resulted in contracts being challenged and damages being payable. This Council had a robust policy and would continue to use the best practice procurement approaches and processes which were supported by the Council’s Corporate Plan. This ensured the Council had appropriate resources to fund the statutory duties and appropriate discretionary services whilst keeping Council Tax low and adopting a modern approach to the delivery of the Council’s service to make sure that they were efficient, effective and fit for purpose.

The Public Contract Regulations 2015 came into effect from 26 February 2015 and implemented the 2014 EU Public Sector Procurement Directive and a number of new reforms which included the following;

(a)          abolition of a pre-qualification stage for procurements below the EU thresholds (£172,514), and a requirement to have regard to guidance on qualitative selection issued by Cabinet Office for above EU threshold procurements;

(b)          a requirement for contracting authorities to insert provisions in all public contracts to ensure prompt payment through the supply chain;

(c)        the requirement to advertise as many public sector opportunities in one place (Contracts Finder), and to publish award notices for contracts and call-offs from framework agreements.

Furthermore all contract opportunities over the value of £25,000 were now required to advertise on the Government’s website, Contracts Finder and the Public Contract Regulations 2015 also implemented the 2014 EU Public Sector Directive into UK Law. The law was designed to open up the EU’s public procurement market to competition, to prevent ‘buy national’ policies and to promote the free movement of goods and services.

Finally the Procurement Manager advised that the Council currently procured 30% of services from local businesses and 57% of these were small to medium sized businesses.

Councillor Waller enquired about the Procurement Hub usefulness. The Procurement Manager advised that the expertise was available when required and had been paid for through rebates and a national framework with around £200,000 of savings produced in 2013/14.

Recommendation:

(1)          That the updated Procurement Strategy be recommended to Cabinet for approval.

Reasons for Decision:

The Council was nearly at the end of the period covered by the current Procurement Strategy, and before it expires an updated strategy needed to be adopted to guide work in this important area.

Other Options Considered and Rejected:

Members were invited to consider and amend as appropriate the attached draft Procurement Strategy 2015-2020, to either increase or reduce the relative importance of any of the issues covered in this strategy, or indeed to introduce any additional elements.