How is government procurement changing, and what are the next challenges for public sector commissioners and procurement experts? Below, public sector procurement expert Colin Cram gives his thoughts on the Government Procurement and Commissioning 2010 conference which took place in London on 14 September.

Speaker presentations are also now available for download, and you can add your thoughts on the changing nature and challenges of public sector procurement. Do you agree with Colin's assessment that public sector procurement is being transformed? Are the changes all posisitve? What more could or should be done to improve government procurement? Join in the debate below.

Chair's thoughts:

"Public sector procurement will be transformed in the next few years and the change has started. That was the clear message coming from speakers at Government Procurement and Commissioning 2010.

Not only has the government decided to drive through major change to the management of this £200bn spend, the public sector framework within which procurement operates is changing. Sir Howard Bernstein, chief executive of Manchester City Council emphasised this in describing his vision for the Grater Manchester local enterprise partnership. Helen Bailey, director of public services at the Treasury stressed the new demands that would be made on procurement when describing immediate priorities for the Efficiency and Reform Group to ensure greater transparency, drive savings and deliver significant savings from joint procurement and commissioning.

David Thomas, commercial director of HMRC and who has transformed its procurement, described the negotiations with the government's major suppliers to deliver savings in this financial year – a step change from the past when the focus was on individual contracts rather than the suppliers. Once the negotiations with these suppliers have been completed, the next stage will be to tackle the next 35. Many of the suppliers in the first tranche are IT and Bill McCluggage described the new approach to IT and the need to avoid the huge contracts that have sometimes come to grief in the past. Nothing demonstrates more the government's determination to transform public sector procurement.

Keith Davis of the National Audit Office described the results of its review into collaborative procurement and a possible broad model for the future management of procurement. Delegates were also referred to my Towards Tesco, published by the Institute of Directors. Nick Bassett of the research councils provided a practical example of joint procurement, which has a target to save £450m, and Andrew Larner of Improvement and Efficiency Partnership South East described the changes taking place in local government procurement.

Another theme of the conference was that leaner procurement can be greener procurement. Stuart Williams of the Carbon Trust provided tips on how to achieve this and the top tips for delivering savings listed by Ken Cole of Capital Ambition were consistent with this.

John Tuckett of the Efficiency and Reform Group described how the 'Gateway' project disciplines are being extended to policymaking through 'Starting Gate'. The role of outsourcing and off-shoring in delivering efficiencies were debated in a workshop with Sheila Brown of Ofsted and Danny Jones of TPI.

The conference concluded with a panel debate between Elizabeth Fells, of the CBI, Lucy Parsons of Reform and Pat Samuel of the Office for Civil Society. Despite the diversity of interests, some consistent message were the need for greater accountability for results (something that was said not to be apparent in the Cabinet Office Structural Reform Plan), the need for greater diversity of approached to deliver savings (e.g. more use of the voluntary sector and hybrid public/private sector bodies), bringing together community and service delivery and modernising the commissioning process. The public sector will shrink.

The one over-riding message from the conference? Public sector procurement will never be the same again."

Speaker Presentations now available here: 

Click on the speakers name to download the relevant presentation.

Danny Jones

Andrew Larner

Bill McCluggage

Danny Jones

David Thomas

Helen Bailey

Howard Bernstein

Jerome Carpentier

John Tuckett

Keith Davis

Ken Cole

MasterCard

Nick Bassett

Sheila Brown

Stuart Williams

Conference, Procurement

Last updated 519 days ago by Civil Service World