Agenda item

Further to Minute No. 34, 6^th October 2008, and Minute No. 53, 1^st December 2008, to receive and consider the attached report of the Chief Procurement Officer and Strategic Equality Manager.

Further to Minute No 34, 6^th October 2008, and Minute No 53, 1^st December 2008, the Council’s Chief Procurement Officer and the Strategic Quality Manager submitted a joint report outlining progress in developing the Council’s ‘One Council’ approach to purchasing goods and commissioning services, the ethical values behind the Council’s Socially Responsible Procurement (SNP) initiative and how equality and diversity was embedded into the procurement process.

Wayne Baxter, Chief Procurement Officer, and Anne McMaster, Strategic Equality Manager, attended the meeting and responded to Members’ queries and comments.  In brief summary, the main points of discussion were:-

·  The One Council commissioning framework was due to be considered by the Council Leadership Team in February or March, with a view to being rolled out in the new municipal year;

·  Work was also progressing in terms of a pilot Quality Assurance project which would enable the Council to ensure that equality was embedded at every stage of the procurement process. This would cover contractors employment practices as well as their service delivery.  Officers were conscious of the need for any scheme to be non-bureaucratic;

·  Reference was made to European competition legislation, which made it very difficult to take factors other than price/cost and value for  money into account when awarding contracts. Local authorities had very limited or no scope to take into account factors such as using local contractors or suppliers or successful contractors employing local people – an issue which was currently topical nationally. The Council could build certain aspects into the contract specification – if they were justified – such as the need for a local operating base, or rotating work on a price and quality basis, but local authorities were always open to legal challenge on their practices.

The Council did carry out financial health checks when employing companies.  Current European contract legislation did not allow negotiations with firms prior to contract award, but there was limited scope to explore such issues once a contract had been awarded. So-called ‘penalty clauses’ were also outlawed although the Council could withhold payment for non provision of services, and also had the ability to build contract extensions into a contract, which could be related to satisfactory performance.

·  In terms of using its purchasing power to achieve savings or obtain better value for money in a time of economic recession, the Council currently lacked the in-depth commercial knowledge of markets or industries which might make this possible. There was also the ethical aspect to take into account when trying to balance the uses and abuses of purchasing power.

A reluctance was expressed regarding the use of consultants to assist the Council in this area, unless there was a skills transference clause involved. One suggestion might be a ‘workshop approach’ - trying to get certain sectors of industry to participate in workshops with, say, a group of local authorities, which could have mutually beneficial outcomes in terms of levels of understanding.

The Chair indicated that the Board’s work to date on this Inquiry had thrown up some interesting ideas and suggestions. The Head of Scrutiny and Member Development, in consultation with the Chair, would now prepare a draft final report for consultation with Members prior to its proposed submission to the April Board meeting.

RESOLVED  - That the report be received and noted, and Wayne Baxter and Anne McMaster be thanked for their attendance and the manner in which they have responded to Members’ queries and comments.

(NB: Councillor Atha left the meeting at 11.20 am during the consideration of this item)