#PublicSector #procurement is ripe for disruption.

Join the discussion on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/antlerboy_transforming-public-procurement-activity-7173222337008361472-UtA3 What change would you like to see in how procurement works?

It’s time to think beyond traditional purchasing and embrace a broader commissioning approach.

Today I’m speaking at the Procurement Act Expo at the NEC. I want to encourage people to focus on how the Act offers a chance to reshape how we use public funds for maximum impact.

The Act has a lot of good ideas from a lot of good people, but is primarily there because at some stage, politicians needed to signal that we have a new post-”Brexit” procurement regime. The declared aims are to speed up and simplify procurement and centre value for money and friendliness to SMEs and voluntary sector providers.

The reality is that with a new regime and public services cracking at the seams, hard-pressed procurement professionals will mostly be forced to become risk-averse and procedural in the first few years. Suppliers with lots of available resources and volume of work will have the advantage in understanding and working with the new regime, so we can expect a dip in all the aspirations to start with — but the potential is there!

As always, the challenge procurement professionals face is an existential one — procurement just happens and is needed — it’s always in the flow of work that we have to establish our strategic value and capability. But this is nothing new — we can look to Ken Livingstone’s GLC for early examples of social value procurement, thinking about broader impacts, which we will see now with Ministers issuing National Procurement Policy Statements directing the way procurement needs to be focused.

My argument is that people in procurement need to embrace this chance for #innovation and #transformation — thinking about the way they work as a strategic function for the organisation (once the basics of new compliance are clear).

That means a focus on:

– ‘upstream thinking’: intervening in the #complex systems we seek to improve for better outcomes.

– downstream thinking: considering the long-term consequences of our purchasing choices on markets, communities, and overarching goals like #netzero.

– partnerships: treating providers as collaborators in creating social value, not just vendors.

This calls for relationships — conversations not processes, strategic partnerships internally and externally, contestability and collaboration over competition, shaping strategy and getting involved early as a partner, not late as a judge or gatekeeper. It calls for maximising the use of open data required in the Act — and building lots and lots of learning across the procurement community by sharing data, case studies, and tips as early as possible.

What change would you like to see in how procurement works?