Issue - meetings

To update Cabinet on the successes of the joint working arrangements with Tendring District Council and Essex County Council for the delivery of procurement functions and to seek approval to explore a wider procurement partnership at a strategic level, to maximise existing opportunities through closer partnership working other Councils.

RESOLVED that Cabinet –

(a)    notes the progress of the existing partnership arrangement with Essex County Council for the delivery of procurement functions under the Service Level Agreement;

(b)    agrees that Tendring District Council (TDC) form part of a wider partnership of Councils to explore the Shared Procurement Service for parts of Essex;

(c)    authorises the Portfolio Holder for Corporate Finance and Governance, (as the Executive member responsible for procurement) to represent this Council at the Member Advisory Group;

(d)    requests the Chief Executive to appoint the appropriate Officer to serve on the Strategic Officer Group;

(e)    authorises the contribution of £45,000 from existing vacancies to the shared procurement project for the development of activities as set out in the Portfolio Holder’s report;

(f)     authorises the Chief Executive, in consultation with the Portfolio Holder for Corporate Finance and Governance, to agree the Partnership Agreement for the Shared Procurement Service;

(g)    requests the Portfolio Holder for Corporate Finance and Governance to review the Shared Procurement Service progress prior to any decision at the expiration of the existing Service Level Agreement with Essex County Council;

(h)    instructs Officers to ensure that the Council’s Contract Register and Procurement Project Pipeline was kept up to date to ensure TDC matters could be included within the Shared Service prioritisation; and

(i)     welcomes the work identified for a joint approach to Social Value for procurement purposes, for a further report to be presented at a Cabinet meeting later in 2023.

Cabinet considered a report of the Corporate Finance & Governance Portfolio Holder (A.2), which updated it on the successes of the joint working arrangements with Tendring District Council (TDC) and Essex County Council (ECC) for the delivery of procurement functions and which also sought its approval to explore a wider procurement partnership at a strategic level, in order to maximise existing opportunities through closer partnership working with other Councils.

Essex County Council & Tendring District Council - provision of procurement services

Cabinet was reminded that the partnership between TDC and ECC had begun on 1^st October 2021.  Since that time the joint team had worked on 53 procurements, of which 24 had been awarded or were awaiting governance approval to award.  In addition to the above, the shared procurement resource had provided advice and support to colleagues across TDC on how to source a wide range of goods and services.  The joint team had embedded a new robust approach to procurement practice with improved documentation, using the Proactis resourcing tool to ensure the visibility of procurement opportunities and robust adoption of procurement process and evaluation principles.  Procurement training had been and continued to be rolled out across the organisation and a new approach to category management had begun to identify key areas of spend where enhanced value for money could be achieved. 

Combined, this had helped the Council to improve its approach to how it spent public money and set the foundations for further improvements.     

Joint Shared Procurement Partnership:

Cabinet was made aware that ECC and Braintree District Council (BDC) had proposed to create a shared procurement service, which would bring together the existing ECC Shared Procurement team, which currently supported TDC with the Essex Procurement Hub (EPH) in partnership for common benefit to all members. This partnership and new Shared Procurement Service was expected to launch in April 2023 to:

·      Undertake procurement activity on behalf of the member districts and boroughs and any new partners who may join.

·      Review corporate spend, trends and patterns and initiate value for money opportunities across council services involving collaborative procurement, internally and externally.

·      Identify collaborative procurement and contract management opportunities on behalf of all member organisations and deliver these procurements.

·      Develop shared documentation and procurement approaches for use by members

·      Seek to identify opportunities to deliver revenue from the Shared Procurement Service.  In the first instance this will be used to offset the investment by ECC.

Members were informed that the future delivery model of the Shared Procurement Service still needed to be explored and shaped but even at an early stage would deliver the following benefits to Tendring District Council:-

·           Resilience - with a larger team across both organisations that was able to meet the fluctuations in demand for the service;

·           Expertise - with the EPH knowledge of district spend areas and the recognised expertise of ECC’s procurement team enabling better constructed procurements and greater value for money;

·           Collaborative savings – through closer working and shared understanding of forward plans, the partnership  ...  view the full minutes text for item 137