Agenda item
Procurement project
Members will receive a verbal update on the procurement project.
Minutes:
Fiona Ledden (Director of Legal and Procurement) provided an update to the committee on the procurement project that had been running since 2012, following the strategic procurement transformation that had changed the composition of staff from mainly temporary staff to permanent council staff, with a number of professional category managers embedded within service directorates. Fiona Ledden advised that the category managers were working actively with the service directorates in ensuring the council benefitted from procurement activities. Turning to the areas covered by the procurement project, she reported that the e-procurement strand had been largely successful and was at green RAG status. Under this strand, i-proc, part of the Oracle module, was being developed and this would facilitate compliance and ensure that staff were accessing the specific contract they were involved in.
Fiona Ledden stated that considerable efforts had been made to provide the appropriate training in up-skilling staff to undertake procurement activities to a high standard. The Business Manager in Legal and Procurement had undertaken a training needs analysis across the council to facilitate this and training courses were being rolled out, with two scheduled for February and March 2013. It was noted that the training strand was presently at amber. The project also had an additional savings strand with a target saving of £1.5m per annum and this was the most challenging one to achieve, although this had recently moved from red to amber status. The reasons for it being problematic was that it involved finding savings from what was mainly the day to day work of the team and there was also no dedicated project manager to undertake this. However, the resource undertaking e-procurement development had been identified to dedicate some time in project managing this strand and a clear plan of activity was now in place.
Members then discussed this item and raised some questions with regard to the project. It was commented that the previous lack of resources for the project had been addressed and further information was sought in respect of the work of the project manager and what training was being offered as some staff could potentially be inexperienced in procurement and was this available to new staff. The importance of up-skilling staff to reduce reliance on external staff and consultants was emphasised and details of what progress had been made in respect of procurement was sought, whilst an enquiry about the progress of controlling maverick spend was made. Members asked how the savings target had been identified and was the emphasis on improving the service as well as making savings. It was suggested that if there was a specific model as to how procurement was to operate, then it should be set out clearly and also pay due consideration to the Brent economy. It was also asked whether a preferred suppliers list for contracts and services was available and could a link to the council’s contracts database be provided.
In reply, Fiona Ledden advised that project management was a key issue and much consideration had been given into identifying the right support and data analysts had refocused their efforts on this. The Business Manager had been tasked with the role of setting up a training programme and those who had undertaken initial online courses could then go straight onto intermediate level courses rather than basic courses. The rolling training programme also provided networking opportunities and was available to all new staff too. Fiona Ledden advised that the large majority of Procurement staff were permanent, despite the difficulties in recruiting permanent appropriately skilled staff. However, there had been specific procurement activities that required specialist input and three interim staff had been appointed to assist. Fiona Ledden emphasised that up-skilling staff across the council was both desirable and necessary and a key objective was to raise the levels of professionalism and standards in procurement. She advised the committee that councils were obliged to consider local interests under the Public Services (Social Value Act) 2012 and this covered procurement issues, although the main objective was in obtaining the best possible price and value for money and to be as efficient as possible. Where feasible, the council also worked with other local authorities in order to help achieve this. Fiona Ledden added that every effort was being made at being creative and innovative in order to generate savings. In respect of maverick spend, she advised that work on this was on-going, although this depended on putting in place improved coding. Procurement was also working with Oracle to ensure the right procedures were followed. Fiona Ledden advised that providing a preferred suppliers list could be difficult to determine and efforts were being made to reduce the number of suppliers and avoid duplication.
Peter Stachniewski (Head of One Council Programme) advised Members that there had initially been a procurement project savings target of £1.5m and this had been part of financial planning for both 2013-14 and 2014-15. However, the target was reassessed as more knowledge was gained as to the savings that were actually to be delivered and which could therefore be included in the budget. Members heard that savings were a key driver but that procurement was only one element within most One Council projects with improvements to service also being a key driver.
The Chair then requested that the committee be provided with a list of regular suppliers and what steps were being taken to reduce the number of these.