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Embedding Social Values in Government Procurement

May 16, 2019
The UK Cabinet Office is in mid-consultation on its latest proposals to increase social value outcomes in public procurements. The opportunity to respond ends on June 10, 2019. We discuss the proposed draft evaluation criteria, issues in interpreting what the guidance means in practice and the...

Buying as One: Category Management Lessons from the United Kingdom

Apr 2, 2019
This IBM report is good reference material for category management best practice for government. Category Management was adopted as a purchasing strategy in the 1980s by the private sector, particularly retail and manufacturing. Essentially it was putting similar types of spend into...

Dilemmas in Selecting Good Suppliers & Good Procurement Talents

Feb 22, 2019
When I was equally ambitious but somewhat younger one of my former employers supported my MBA. (That was during the Dotcom bubble with Internet still in its infancies). I recall one beer-night with fellow-students when we had a discussion on successful recruitment methods. We felt that networking...

Scottish Local Authorities Huge Increase in Locally Sourced Meat for Schools

Nov 22, 2018
Edinburgh City Council has been working to increase the quantity of farm-assured Scottish meat procured for schools since they gained their Food for Life Served Here Bronze award in 2013. Now 80% of their fresh meat and fish is sourced in Scotland. In fact, the council has increased that spending...

NHS Price Comparison Tool Saves £288 million

Nov 1, 2018
UK NHS Improvement has announced that “Trusts across England saved £288 million in the last financial year by securing the best deals for commonly bought items, such as syringes, disposable gloves, loo roll and shoe covers.” A price comparison tool allows Trusts to view the most expensive and...

Highways Procurement Survey

Jul 12, 2018
A recent UK Highways/FiTZ INDEX survey has revealed that the majority of respondents (54.3%) disagreed or strongly disagreed that ‘procurement in the highways sector is fair for non-Tier One suppliers and for new entrants.’ It paints a worrying picture of the nature of procurement in the...

Violations of Public Procurement Law – Slovakia

Jul 12, 2018
A Let’s Stop Corruption Foundation think tank pointed out a non-transparent procurement in the Slovakian ministry’s St Michal Hospital. It involved a tender for the purchase of the complex medical equipment and for catering for patients and employees. The Public Procurement Office has confirmed...

Speeding Up Government Buying – Some Different Approaches

Jun 5, 2018
Buying with public money is difficult; it requires many things, not least scruples, skill, integrity (if done well) – the list goes on. But one thing is certain, the outcome must be about Value and Transparency. That brings us to a very useful article in Government Technology (and thanks to Hal...

The World’s Most Resilient Supply Chains Ranked

May 17, 2018
FM Global’s Supply Chain Resilience Index 2018 is out. This is an annual ranking of 130 countries and territories by the resilience of their business environments. It is an online, interactive resource to give global business leaders, private and public, the intelligence with which to plan where...

Procurement Innovation – What Does It Really Mean?

May 17, 2018
We know that “Procurement Innovation” is something that is dear to the hearts of many Public Spend Forum readers and indeed many working on both the buy and supply sides of the public procurement world, across many countries. But as this has become a hot topic, it has also led to some...

Start-Up Solution Helps Suppliers Find and Win Public Contracts

Mar 6, 2018
Newly announced, Tenderlake is a UK start-up of 2016 with a SaaS solution that leverages Artificial Intelligence to help organisations find and win more public tenders. It scouts websites and marketing materials, then finds customers with open opportunities to supply the products and services and...