Agenda item

Report of the Director of Commissioning and Procurement

Christine Oliver, Head of Commissioning, introduced a report on the Nottingham City Council Procurement Plan 2017-2022 which set out the Council’s planned programme of procurement activity for all goods, works and services over that five year period.

RESOLVED to:

(1)  note the Nottingham City Council Procurement Plan 2017-2022;

(2)  note that the Procurement Plan is indicative of planned procurement activity and timescales, which may be subject to change dependent on the outcomes of the strategic commissioning process, service budgets and priorities and the full consideration of procurement options for each requirement; and

(3)  note that the outcomes of procurement activity undertaken in accordance with the Plan during 2017/18 will be reported at the end of the year.

Reasons for decision

The Procurement Plan:

a)   is a key mechanism in the implementation of the Nottingham City Council Procurement Strategy 2014-17, enabling the planning of procurement activity to deliver the Council’s strategic priorities:

·  Grow the local economy

·  Drive increased local job opportunities for local people

·  Deliver effective value for money for our citizens

·  Lead as an Early Intervention City

·  Lead as a Green City;

b)  enables the Council to secure value for money, manage financial resources effectively and align its commissioning and procurement activity with the Council’s Medium Term Financial Plan, through a planned approach and robust financial analysis for each project.  A strategic category management approach in key areas of spend will maximise the value of spend and generate savings wherever possible for client departmental budgets;

c)  supports compliance with the Public Procurement Regulations and the Contract Procedure Rules of the Council’s Financial Regulations by enabling procurement activity to be planned and undertaken within the duration of existing contracts.  This will minimise the need for dispensation from the Financial Regulations to be sought to extend contracts beyond their expiry date without formal tendering being undertaken, other than in genuinely exceptional circumstances.  This is particularly important in relation to goods and services that are subject to the full application of the European Procurement Directives;

d)  provides information for internal and external stakeholders about planned procurement activity and presents a clear, transparent and robust process of procurement planning.  It facilitates joint working with partner organisations and collaboration in procurement activity.  It allows other service departments (such as Legal Services) to include support for procurement activity in their work plans;

e)  supports the Council’s commercialism agenda by enabling potential ‘make or buy’ opportunities to be identified in a timely way in advance of existing contracts being due for renewal.  It facilitates the forward planning of ‘make or buy’ considerations by the Make or Buy Panel; and

f)  informs provider markets about forthcoming opportunities to bid for contracts with the Council; enabling potential suppliers to prepare for these and enabling market development support to be offered.

The Council’s long term programme of procurement activity is currently under review to ensure the alignment of key projects with legal and procurement capacity.  Therefore the Plans detail timescales for procurement activity over the forthcoming year and timescales for longer term projects will be reported to the Committee in April 2018.

Other options considered

The option of doing nothing was considered but rejected because it would impact on the planning of the Council’s procurement activity across all goods, works and services.  It would risk non-compliance with the Council’s Contract Procedure Rules and Financial Regulations through contracts needing to be extended beyond their expiry date due to procurement activity not being undertaken in a timely way.  In relation to commissioned services it would impact on the alignment of procurement activity with the programme of commissioning activity undertaken within the Strategy and Resources Department.