Oxfordshire County Council in England talked to procurement analyst firm Spend Matters about how it is getting its ad-hoc spending under control and supporting the local economy. Following his talk at Amazon Business Exchange on driving best practice in indirect spend categories for the public sector, Paul Ashby, Senior Commercial Officer, said:
“As a council, we provide such a diverse range of services that whatever you can think of, we probably buy it! We might, for example, be supporting a young person to set up home for the first time, so we are buying all sorts of commodities, in this case from an iron to a washing machine. The question for a procurement leader might be: ‘where are all the contracts for these consumer items?’” And he explains how small suppliers should take advantage of platforms where they can open up their product to a wider audience, and how marketplaces can bridge the gap in the P2P process. Read Filling the gap in public sector frameworks