Procurement strategy

Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight Procurement strategy v1.8

1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND INTRODUCTION

This Procurement Strategy outlines our ambition and direction of travel for Procurement.

Procurement Vision

“Deliver commercial procurement solutions which meet our needs and deliver positive outcomes.”

Our mission

Our mission is to provide an innovative Procurement and Commercial service which adds significant value and actively enables the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) and Hampshire Constabulary (HC) to achieve the aims of the Police and Crime Plan 2016-21 and the Chief Constable’s operational ‘purpose’ and six key areas of focus in order to meet the needs of the citizens of Hampshire.

The Procurement Strategy has been developed to support Hampshire Constabulary’s objectives and the priorities set out in the PCC’s Police and Crime Plan 2016-21.

This strategy aims to provide a link between the strategic objectives and purposes of both organisations and the priorities for the procurement service taking into account the social economics and political landscape from a local/regional and national perspective.

The strategy recognises the responsibility Procurement has in supporting both organisations’ in maximising available savings opportunities and efficiencies with a focus on achieving value for money from public finances, alongside collaborating with internal and external partners.

This strategy is supported by an Action Plan to drive further improvement in procurement performance.

2 PROCUREMENT AND COMMERCIAL AIMS

This strategic commercial and procurement strategy sets out Procurement’s ambition in supporting both organisations’ strategic aims, purpose and objectives.

The procurement function is increasingly viewed as a value creator in any business, capable of delivering cost reduction and enabling the development of new models of service delivery. There is a clear reliance on procurement to support the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC) and HC in achieving its operational policing needs and the Police and Crime Plan 2016-21. The strategy therefore focuses on the Procurement and Commercial team embracing a strategic approach to procurement, recognising its ability to positively impact and achieve financial, environmental and social outcomes.

The strategy recognises the policy and financial challenges faced by Police forces and the wider public sector.

We will rigorously review our procurement decisions, together with effective and efficient procurement procedures. Our approach will focus on generating tangible and meaningful efficiencies including cashable savings and in doing so will help to afford some protection of the front-line services.

The procurement strategy outlines 7 key strategic priority areas of delivery:

Promoting awareness of Procurement and Commercial Principles

Embed the Procurement and Commercial Principles across procurement and the wider organisation.
Raising awareness of procurement requirements and promoting good procurement practice.

Leadership, Governance and Skills within procurement
Ensure appropriate leadership, governance and resource skills exist within our procurement projects to secure best value and make sound commercial decisions.

Procurement and Commercial functions based on effective – category management, strategic sourcing, supplier relationship development and contract management
Continue to expand our procurement category management approach across the Review our tools, processes and skills used in its deployment.
Deliver a consistent process in strategic sourcing.
Stimulate and build market capacity where appropriate.
Continue to improve our contract management and supplier development approach, working towards best practice, recognising that both organisations’ are working within an increasingly complex and challenging supply chain environment.

Partnering and collaboration (both regionally and nationally)
Support the regional and national police procurement agenda, drawing on available expertise and, where possible, support.
Identify opportunities where we can provide a lead on regional and national procurements.
Utilise regional and national procurement arrangements where appropriate.
Establish partnering relationships where it creates value and benefit for the OPCC (the office responsible for supporting the PCC) and the Constabulary.

Supporting the Commissioning function

Supporting the Commissioning team to secure contracted commissioned services which support crime prevention and support victims and witnesses.

Innovation, efficiencies and savings
Seek out opportunities to support an innovative procurement solution across the organisations and supply chain.
Drive forward efficiencies and cost reduction in the procurement process; using technology to support our activity and being “digital by default” in our procurement transactions.
Increasing the proportion of spend against contracted suppliers and reducing the overall external spend of the Authorities.
Maximising available savings opportunities via a focus on providing value for money in our procurement contracts.

Sustainability and Social Value in Procurement
Develop a consistent approach to Sustainability and Social Value within our Using our procurement and commissioning strategies to deliver value to the residents of Hampshire and the local economy.

Note: This strategy and associated Delivery Plan supports the Police and Crime Plan 2016-21; however, it covers the period to end Dec 2022.

Throughout this document where reference is made to the Authorities or Hampshire Constabulary, the principles and actions should generally be considered as being relevant to both the OPCC and HC.

3 INTRODUCTION

3.1 Financial challenge

Hampshire Constabulary has an annual revenue budget in the region of £315 million. In 2017/18 the OPCC and HC spent around £52.6 million on goods, works and services through external supply, using approximately 3,141 suppliers and received over 36,687 e-Invoices.

The PCC and Constabulary continue to face a challenging financial position. The increase in precept for a Band D property of £12 for 2018/19, followed by the increase of £24 for 2019/20 and forecast increases of 1.99% for each year 2020/21 and 2021/22, still leaves a requirement for budget reductions to be made in order to balance the budget.

The summary MTFS shows that significant savings of at least £16m are required over the next 3 years to balance the budget in the medium term. In addition, further indicative savings of £16.6m have been identified over the period 2019/20 through to 2021/22, which would deliver a balanced budget each year through to 2021/22.

Procurement has a key role to play in ensuring that external expenditure delivers maximum benefit both in terms of commercial and sustainable service delivery.

3.2 About Procurement

Procurement is the process of acquiring goods, works and services. It covers the entire process from the initial identification of a need, selecting the supplier, managing the contract, through to final disposal of an asset or ending/replacement of a contract. It will involve initial option appraisal and critical ‘make or buy’ decisions, which may result in the provision of in-house

services or partnerships with other public sector organisations in appropriate circumstances. The high-level procurement process is outlined in the cyclical steps listed below:

Planning: Define and challenge need, engage stakeholders.
Analyse and strategy: Collect and analyse data, build strategy.
Procurement: Go to market, tender/quote.
Award and implement: Contract go live.
Contract management: Monitor performance and exit/renewal.

3.3 Procurement in the OPCC and HC

The role of procurement is about more than just a process. The principles set out in this strategy demonstrate the positive contribution we believe procurement arrangements can make to the communities the Constabulary serves.

Procurement is delivered through collaboration under a “Joint Working Partnership” between the OPCC, HC, Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service and Hampshire County Council and is hosted within the Council.

A category management approach is used which allows the Constabulary to maximise the benefits from procurement collaboration for categories and sub- categories of works, goods and services. The key categories are:

ICT (the core of this spend, £14.1m in 18/19 is budgeted for revenue payments to Thames Valley Police who manage and host a joint ICT arrangement covered by their procurement strategy accordingly).
Property/Estates
Facilities Management
Professional Services
Transport
Specialised Equipment/Operational
Common Goods (including Uniform)

Each key category contains additional numerous sub-categories of spend.

The “Joint Working Procurement Partnership” has a combined external spend of circa £694 million per annum.

The OPCC and HC had a combined annual external spend of around £40 million in 17/18 for categories managed through the “Joint Working Procurement Partnership”.

The external spend across the seven categories are broken down in Table 1 below.

Table 1:

Category	2017/18 spend
ICT (outside of core TVP arrangements)	£1,664,602
Property / Estates	£8,306,486
Facilities Management	£5,770,618
Professional Services	£14,471,427
Transport	£4,942,230
Specialised Equipment / Operational	£576,945
Common Goods (including Uniform)	£4,414,620
Total	£40,146,927

Between them, the two organisations hold around 100 live contracts at any one time; (excluding low value transaction). The OPCC is focused on commissioned support services for victims of crime, reducing offending and the physical estate and management of it and the Constabularies are focused on supporting Police operational activity.

In 2017/18, the top 20 suppliers of the OPCC and HC combined accounted for approx. £18.8 million/46.86% of total expenditure.

NOTE: This excludes payments to other PCC’s, Government Departments, Hampshire County Council Partnership contribution payments and other staff costs, e.g. Pensions.

Broadly speaking 21% of total expenditure for 2017/18 was to organisations’ with a presence in Hampshire.

We will seek to maximise the level of expenditure in Hampshire for local/SME/Micro Businesses where possible and where it represents value for money.

The government has committed to 33% of central government procurement spend going to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), directly or via the supply chain, by 2022.

Contract Standing Orders (CSOs) are the regulatory framework for all staff to follow in respect of purchasing goods, services and works regardless of value. They invoke the relevant aspects of the EU and UK procurement law. CSOs ensure procurement processes are followed in a regulated manner.

For the purposes of compliance and transparency in accordance with Government requirements, all tendering opportunities over £100,000 are advertised via the e-Procurement portal (In-Tend), and the Government’s business portal Contracts Finder. If the value of the contract exceeds the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 value threshold then that opportunity is advertised in the Official Journal of the European Journal (OJEU).

The main exception to this is where there is a National/Regional/Local framework already in place that meets the criteria for best value.

4 KEY STRATEGIC PROCUREMENT PRIORITIES

The priorities identified within this Procurement Strategy support the Police and Crime Plan 2016–21 and the Chief Constable’s Operational ‘Purpose’. It is underpinned by the principle that we must put the operational officer and support to victims at the centre of all procurement effort and above all the correct organisational culture and ethos, to provide the best, visible and cost-effective service possible to our community.

This Strategy identifies a number of key strategic priorities. Each theme will be supported by actions and outcomes that support the OPCC and HC’s key priorities and aspirations.

Partnership working remains at the heart of our approach to deliver effective procurement services.

4.1 Promoting awareness of Procurement and Commercial Principles

Procurement will seek to embed the Procurement and Commercial Principles across procurement and the wider organisation:

Commercial focus: a strong commercial focus to ensure that we manage suppliers and markets to achieve best value for money and delivery of savings.
Innovation: drive innovation within our organisation and from our suppliers to achieve mutual benefits and outcomes.
Integrated delivery: strong relationships across the organisation to meet shared outcomes, delivering across all steps of the procurement and commercial lifecycle.
Transformational solutions: transform services, by understanding and shaping markets, using knowledge and influence.
Centre of excellence: Ensuring we have the right people with the right skills, at the right time supported by lean and effective processes.

The procurement team will continue to raise and maintain awareness of procurement requirements and promote good procurement practice through:

Publishing appropriate guidance and provide professional support to stakeholders in procurement activities.
Working collaboratively and proactively with key stakeholders to support the commissioning and delivery of services.
Providing procurement and contract management support and advice.
Promoting early engagement of procurement in Stakeholder team thinking, including detailed discussion on compatibility with existing, fitness for use, etc.
Delivering regular appropriate procurement training to key stakeholders.
Ensuring that stakeholders understand the requirement to be fully compliant with Contract Standing Orders and the Public Contracts Regulations 2015.
Appropriately consulting with stakeholders in the development of procurement strategies for projects, ensuring that consideration is proportionate to the scale, complexity and value of the requirement.
Ensuring Contract Standing Orders reflect legislation and best procurement practice.
Engaging with service leads and stakeholders regularly.
Reporting regularly on savings achieved.
Publishing details of contracts awarded and producing regular procurement project pipelines and contract register dashboards.

4.2 Leadership, Governance and Skills within procurement

The PCC holds the Chief Constable to account for the delivery of policing and within that how money is spent on policing. In turn the Police and Crime Panel supports and scrutinises the Commissioner and their performance. The panel have a statutory role in:

Reviewing, and making a report and recommendations upon, the draft Police and Crime Plan and Annual Report.
Reviewing and scrutinising decisions made and actions taken in the exercise of the PCC’s functions.
Reviewing proposed Council Tax precept levels.
Handling any complaints about conduct against the PCC.
Reviewing and reporting on proposed senior appointments including that of Chief Constable.

Delivering value for money from the Constabulary’s spending is the collective responsibility of everyone involved with procurement throughout the organisation. The Senior Leadership team in both organisations have an important role in questioning procurement decisions, ensuring sustainable benefits are achieved and ensuring that all OPCC and HC staff are fully aware of the need to adhere to Contract Standing Orders (CSOs) and The Scheme of Delegation and Consent (SoDC) is a mandatory requirement and that the ongoing compliance with both will be regularly monitored.

Within the procurement “Joint Working Partnership” team the Category Lead for Property, Infrastructure & Partners leads the partnership relationships with senior management leads for the OPCC and HC. Reporting to the Assistant Director for Procurement, the Category Lead, along with the Procurement senior management team provide the leadership and oversight to ensure the procurement function is focused on delivery of projects and targets and that resources reflect the needs of the both organisations and provide the Procurement and Commercial support required

The procurement team is focused on:

Providing strategic direction and agreeing the parameters within which procurement activity takes place.
Ensuring key decisions arising from procurement activity are made for clear and transparent reasons.
Providing strategic leadership to enable barriers to the implementation of procurement initiatives to be addressed.
Supporting the development of budgets and savings targets which accurately reflect the potential outcomes arising from procurement activity across the organisations.

4.3 Governance Model

Effective procurement requires strong working relationships between Procurement resources, Legal and Finance services and internal colleagues across the OPCC and HC. This has been established through building confidence in the ability of these services to work together and provide consistent and innovative expert advice to client categories/teams. The governance model recognises the need for quality engagement and more effective upfront procurement planning and this strategy supports that approach.

4.3.1 Governance Good Practice/Approvals Process

Procurement approvals are essential in driving the right behaviours and ensuring the benefits from strategic procurement activities are maximised across the whole force. Our Governance good practice objectives are set out below:

Market engagement processes promote effective competition between potential suppliers.
Publishing details of our contracting opportunities, contracts and spend to ensure we are open and transparent.
Formal contracts and frameworks are used where available and represent value for money for goods and services.
Formal approval are in place for all external spend.
Purchasing approvals are system generated to optimise processing efficiency.
Confidential procurement information and/or intellectual property are safeguarded.
Conflicts of interest are minimised and effectively managed.
A Corporate Social Responsibility ethos is promoted.

4.4 Skills

We recognise that in order to ensure effective and consistent performance in our procurement and commercial delivery we need to be able to attract, retain and deploy a high standard of flexible procurement and commercial staff. Our procurement teams need to exhibit the required professional, personal and technical skills to deliver our vision.

“Commercial Procurement solutions which meet our needs and deliver positive outcomes.”

To achieve this, we will:

Continue to build flexible procurement resources which can be deployed across projects and categories.
Ensure effective project planning and monitoring through our contracts register and project pipeline.
Use our dedicated Lead Category Managers to maintain and develop relationships with Service Leads and ensure additional stakeholder engagement takes place across range of levels within the organisation.
Understand the skills required to deliver best practice procurement and commercial activity.
Invest in developing practical skills in Commercial and Procurement services through training, secondments, work shadowing, mentoring and coaching activity.
Create opportunities for knowledge sharing across the procurement teams.

We also recognise the need to develop the skills and knowledge of our supply chain and will invest in market engagement and training to support suppliers in responding to tender, which in turn supports us in achieving innovative and best value responses.

4.5 Procurement and Commercial functions

Based on effective category management, strategic sourcing, supplier relationship development and contract management.

The procurement function has the ability to create value in any business. It is capable of delivering cost reduction and enabling the development of new models of service delivery. Our aim is to embrace a strategic approach to procurement as its ability to achieve financial, environmental and social outcomes gains greater recognition. Some of the strengths of a well-functioning strategic procurement and commercial team include:

Skilled and respected procurement and commercial professionals, specialising in categories.
Enhanced ability to influence corporate decisions and strategy.
High levels of contract compliance and development of strategic supplier relationships.
Cost transparency and tracking.

The processes that drive procurement include Category Management, Sourcing, Contract Management, Strategic Supplier Relationship Management (SSRM) and Purchasing. In order to manage total costs it is important to consider these elements together, rather than in isolation.

4.5.1 Category Management Approach

The Category Management Approach forms the overarching framework for the delivery of procurement and commercial work streams across the two Authorities. It is an approach to manage a spend category end-to-end, using aspects of demand management to challenge what an organisation buys, in depth market know-how and strong alignment with business and finance functions and it is a vital part of a strong procurement approach.

Our aim will be to develop Category Plans for each of the OPCC and HC key category areas of spend managed through the Joint Procurement Partnership.

The investment and implementation of the category management for the OPCC and HC remains vital in the development of a strategic procurement capability and is already improving procurement practice and outcomes.

It is important that the category management approach brings together expertise from across the organisation and establishes shared objectives between Procurement and the service areas. This will encourage collaborative working and ensure that the most appropriate, effective and efficient approach is identified to deliver the Authority’s outcomes through procurement activity.

A category management approach will involve close joint working between Category Managers and Contract Lead Officers.

A category management approach alone will not build a strategic procurement function. It is also important that procurement is focused on other key activities, which are explored below.

4.5.2 Sourcing value for money solutions

The key consideration of any procurement and commercial activity must be to achieve value for money. This involves achieving the optimum combination of whole life cost and quality (or fitness for purpose) to meet the user’s requirement. This does not mean the cheapest goods or services and requires that economic, commercial, legal, environmental and social outcomes are taken into consideration.

The OPCC and HC are contracting authorities for the purposes of the EU Public Procurement Directives and are thereby legally bound to comply with certain practices and procedures in the award of Contracts. The two Authorities’ Contract Standing Orders provide the framework to:

Ensure the Authorities use their resources efficiently in making purchasing decisions to obtain best value in public services.
Comply with the laws that govern the spending of public money, and
Provide a means of safeguarding the reputation of the Authority and its staff from any implication of dishonesty or corruption.

In order to ensure good practice:

Procurement and commercial activity should be governed by how best to achieve value for money.
Competitive tendering is undertaken, along with regular reviews of contracts to determine whether current arrangements continue to deliver value for money.
Services, goods and works that are commissioned should reflect local and/ or national policy priorities and objectives.
Contracts should be awarded on a balance between quality and cost rather than price alone.
Value for money should be judged on the whole of life costs, rather than the cheapest initial price.
Suppliers are expected to achieve high performance and continue to deliver value for money through appropriate contract management, where the Authority and suppliers work together for mutual benefit.

The Procurement and Commercial function has an important role to play in building the focus on value for money across service areas and encouraging value for money decisions to be made. This will be enabled through the provision of strategic procurement advice and support, which may involve market and supplier intelligence, analysing and challenging needs and performing benchmarking.

4.5.3 Contract Management and Strategic Supplier Relationship Management

Contract Management (CM) and Strategic Supplier Relationship Management (SSRM) continue to become specialist disciplines, due to the following factors:

Appreciation of distinct skill sets required to do it well.
Supplier prioritisation to match contract management resource, and their activities, to the risk / spend value of contracts within a portfolio.
Greater concentration on pricing and performance management in an economic downturn to extract ongoing and sustainable value from contracts.
Increased technological innovation and spend on contract management systems including consolidation of providers and growth in central contract repositories.
Emphasis on creating auditable trails for contracts due to growth in litigation and integration of the supply chain into day-to-day operations management to drive Return on Investment (ROI).
The need to ensure contract duration decisions support the relationship strategy and where appropriate, longer terms collaborative relationships are based on clear measurement of performance and sustained improvements in quality and efficiency management.

Strategic procurement requires contracts and business relationships with suppliers to be proactively managed, to ensure suppliers achieve the high performance that is expected, and that maximum value is delivered. To this end the Authorities ambition is to develop a structured understanding of the nature of current relationships and will work with contracted suppliers for mutual benefit and to encourage the development of new and innovative service delivery models.

Contract and supplier relationship management has the potential to achieve significant savings on top of procurement savings and benefits through:

Performance Management.
Price challenges/benchmarking.
Cost avoidance.
Continuous service and process improvement.
‘Game Changing’ innovation.

Specifically, procurement will support the Authorities in achieving effective contract and supplier management through:

Maintenance of an up to date contract register using the e-Tendering
The clear definition of roles and responsibilities between Procurement and Commercial and Contract Lead
Supporting Contract Lead Officers to realise opportunities to extract additional value from existing long term contractual
Strategic supplier management strategies for key strategic suppliers, which ensures the following:
- A shared understanding of needs and expectations of the Authorities;
- Clear governance arrangements are established within the contract to allow the Authority to manage the relationship;
- Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) within contracts to collect data and monitor performance;
- Timely reviews of metrics to set service and process improvement

4.5.4 Ordering and Payment – Purchase to Pay (P2P)

Our electronic P2P process is through our corporate SAP system managed by the Integrated Business Centre. Successful implementation of a suitable ordering method for a contract should result in:

An increase in contracted spend, providing value for money, protected spending and cashable savings.
An increase in accuracy of purchase orders and invoices.
The reduction of manual intervention and paperwork.
Efficient processes for purchasers and suppliers and the reduction in transactional costs.
Visibility and greater detail of spend to inform strategic category management decisions.
Enabling flexible options for purchasers, the Integrated Business Centre and suppliers.

The P2P options should be considered during the early procurement planning stage. As part of early stakeholder engagement with both the supply market and end users, the Contract Lead Officer should ensure that the most efficient P2P ordering route is selected.

4.6 Partnering and collaboration regional and national

4.6.1 Partnering

We will continue to work within the Joint Procurement partnership shared service.

4.6.2 Collaboration

The Authorities are committed to a collaborative approach to procurement that involves working nationally, regionally, and locally. The procurement team will continue to support the police procurement agenda through:

Supporting the work and directive of the APCC and NPCC.
Attendance and contribution to the National Police Procurement Executive (NPPE).
Providing response to Home Office and wider government consultation which have a procurement impact.
Supporting the National Procurement strategies developed by The National Commercial Board, inputting into the savings measurement approach and providing data for the national savings tracker.
Taking the opportunity to lead regional and national procurements.
Exploiting the opportunities presented by existing regional and national procurement framework arrangements where they meet the needs of the Authorities.
Establish partnering relationships where it creates value and benefit for the OPCC and HC.

4.7 Supporting the Commissioning function

We will support the Commissioning team to secure contracted commissioned services which support crime prevention and support victims and witnesses through:

Maintaining a good relationship between commissioners, stakeholders and procurement through regular dialogue.
Putting the outcomes of the commissioning need at the heart of the procurement planning process.
Use procurement methods which are proportionate and appropriate to the value of the commissioned service.
Procuring external resources in an open and transparent manner.

4.8 Innovation, efficiencies and savings

4.8.1 Innovation

We will develop a culture of innovation within procurement, with the aim of:

Bringing new ideas to life.
Creating new value for the authority and users of services.
Creating new value for suppliers and providers of services which can bring additional benefits to the Authorities through.

We will aim to achieve this by:

Driving innovation within our own organisation, providing opportunities for the procurement term to interact with people within and outside of our organisational boundaries within a safe environment for generating and sharing ideas.
Developing greater commercial skills within procurement team along with strong commercial leadership.
Identifying ways to stimulate and shape markets and market behaviour.
Creating appropriate incentives and risk sharing within contracts.

4.8.2 Continuous improvement and efficiencies

We will continue to exploit technology to create continuous improvements and efficiencies in the procurement cycle including reducing the time and cost of purchasing. We will seek to achieve this through:

Business Process Review – Periodically review our e- procurement/procurement processes to identify and implement improvements.
Annual spend analysis – Undertake annual review of spend to identify any new opportunities or requirements for contracting, consolidation and aggregation of spend.
Ordering – Promote the use of SAP for all orders not covered by an exemption identified by Financial Identify the most appropriate and fit for purpose ordering method for each contract.
Supplier Numbers – Curtail the addition of suppliers for goods and services for which we already have contracted suppliers in place through the promotion of existing contracted suppliers and raising awareness of contract arrangements.
E-Ordering – Maximise use of electronic ordering communication method with suppliers, through regular review of supplier records.
Procurement Cards – facilitate review the use of Procurement cards (P- Cards) for low value purchases, through p-card data provision, promote P2P, p-card best practice.
E-payments – Work with the IBC to support payment efficiencies.

4.8.3 Savings

We will continue to support the objectives of any new external spend savings targets which emerge during this period of this strategy period.

We will:

Ensure that all new procurements above £100,000 have a clear procurement strategy with principles and objectives and are assessed for savings and efficiency opportunities.
For all OJEU level procurements, clear market engagement plans are developed to foster opportunities for savings and improvements from the market.
Challenge the need of individual procurement.
Base procurement decisions on whole life cycle principles.

4.9 Sustainability and Social Value in Procurement

4.9.1 Sustainability and Social Value in Procurement

It is recognised that procurement has a vital role in furthering sustainable development and social value, through our procurement of goods, services and works. Procurement decisions have a major socio-economic and environmental implication, both locally and globally, now and for future generations.

Sustainable procurement can be a powerful tool both for advancing sustainable development and for achieving social objectives. It covers a wide spectrum of economic, environmental and social considerations, which will be taken into account at the appropriate stage of the procurement lifecycle through a commitment by the Authorities to integrating sustainable procurement practices into their overall strategic procurement approach.

We will strive to:

People, education and awareness:

Educate, train and encourage staff to review their consumption of goods and services, reduce usage and adopt more environmentally-friendly products.
Communicate the sustainable procurement policy to all staff, suppliers and stakeholders.

Procurement strategy, policy and process:

Promote and embed best practice for sustainable procurement.
Work in partnership with other public bodies to maximise sustainable procurement gains through collaboration and information sharing.
Ensure local and small suppliers have equal access to procurement opportunities and where possible increase our spend with local suppliers, identifying opportunities to impact local economic growth, including improving employment and skills development opportunities.
Work with our suppliers to identify opportunities to include apprenticeships and employment opportunities through our contract arrangements.
Develop a Social Value procurement approach.

Environmental products:

Consider the costs and benefits of environmentally-friendly goods and services, including minimising ‘procurement miles’.
Wherever possible and practicable, specify a requirement in line with nationally or regionally agreed minimum specifications.
Where such exact specification is not possible, enable suppliers to submit offers for environmentally-friendly alternatives.

Environmental construction, biodiversity and recycling:

Meet Carbon Reduction targets and utilise the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) as appropriate to work towards sustainable construction, refurbishment and maintenance.
Continue to improve the levels of recycling, reduced usage, bulk delivery and better packaging.

Engaging suppliers:

Communicate our sustainability objectives to our suppliers.
Encourage suppliers to adopt environmentally-friendly processes and supply environmentally-friendly goods and services as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility.

Social Responsibility agenda:

Ensure that procurement processes are appropriate to the scale and risk involved so that they are not unduly onerous especially for local and small suppliers.
Continue to update and publish our contracts register, forthcoming tendering opportunities and Selling to the Authority Guide on our Procurement – Business Opportunities web pages and work with national and regional opportunities portals as appropriate.
Ensure that, where appropriate and allowable, social value criteria are part of the supplier evaluation process and are used in the award of contracts.
Seek opportunities to influence positive outcomes in relation social value.

Measurements and results:

Comply with all legislation relevant to sustainability.
Where appropriate collaborate with other public sector bodies in support of common sustainability targets.

4.9.2 Promoting Social Equality

The Authorities are committed to securing genuine equality of opportunity in all aspects of our activities as an employer, service provider and commissioner of services.

We have an opportunity to influence the equality agenda with suppliers through our procurement processes.

We will:

Actively engage with the requirements of the current Equalities Legislation and are committed to ensuring that major suppliers and contractors share our equality and diversity vision and values.
Continue to support and improve access to procurement opportunities for SMEs, Supported Businesses, Social Enterprises, Co-operatives and Third Sector.

4.9.3 Modern Day Slavery

The Authorities are committed to acting ethically and with integrity in all its business relationships and is committed to ensuring that there is no modern slavery or human trafficking in our supply chains.

We have an opportunity to influence supplier’s adherence to our values through its procurement processes.

Where there is deemed to be a potentially significant risk of modern day slavery practices within our supply chain, we may conduct supply chain mapping, to enable us to determine where the risk exists and an appropriate course of action.

Our contracts require our suppliers to warrant their compliance with the Modern Slavery Act where the legislation applies.

4.9.4 Benefits for the Authorities

Collectively, sustainable procurement has the ability to deliver the following benefits to the Authorities:

Reducing costs.
Keeping ahead of increasing demands for sustainable goods and services by the communities we serve.
Social and economic benefits such as the creation of employment and training opportunities.

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