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IANA Edmonds has worked in many library sectors, founded, developed and sold her own library business,
worked as an Assistant Director in a local authority and has been National Director of Libraries for GLL (Greenwich Leisure Limited) since 2011. Over that time GLL’s library partnerships have increased to include Bromley, Greenwich and Wandsworth in London, Dudley in the West Midlands and the vast County of Lincolnshire. Diana’s role at GLL spans much more than procurement but here she discusses the tensions and opportunities of centralised and local purchasing. “GLL is a large organisation with an annual turnover in excess of £300m,” Diana says, “and procurement is managed carefully across the organisation. A variety of purchasing frameworks have been negotiated to ensure that we achieve good value – and standard procurement processes are used across the organisation, to make sure that appropriate approvals are in place before orders are placed. “We are a Real Living Wage employer, and so we are concerned with the employment practices of our supply chain too – and concerned that our suppliers also pay the Real Living Wage. Many products ranging from stationery through to IT hardware and utilities are purchased under corporate frameworks – and we achieve good quality and good prices. “Within the Libraries Division, we work with a number of corporate contractors.
The Libraries Division has become passionate about ‘green libraries’, delivering library services in a sustainable way.
How it works at GLL
GLL manages five very different library service partnerships and includes Archives and Museum Services. Diana Edmonds, National Libraries Director at GLL, explains how joining forces helps buying and buyers.
We manage a significant number of library buildings and so we work closely with our facilities contractors: they all operate under framework agreements and repairs and maintenance will be done on time and to a high quality. This doesn’t mean that we are stuck in a procurement straightjacket. The Libraries Division has become passionate about ‘green libraries’, delivering library services in a sustainable way – and adopting an environmentally friendly approach to the management of our services. Our contractors have worked with us, sourcing sustainable products, adapting and developing their standard approach to projects.”
Buying power
“We represent five local authority library services, with the budgets for five library services. This gives the supplier access to a higher value sale – because, to put it quite simply, if we agree as a Division to buy a product for our library services, we will be buying five items rather than one. The process is more rapid, and more efficient. In order to present the product, the supplier will have one meeting rather than five, one order instead of five, one invoice to create instead of five, and so on. “This approach has worked well for us when buying e-resources. We want all the library services we manage to have access to a high quality bank of e-resources, and so we negotiate and purchase centrally. Suppliers have recognised the benefit of selling once to the GLL consortium, and we have been able to develop an excellent collection of e-resources for our customers.”
Diana Edmonds. Buying responsibilities
Diana says: “I negotiate purchasing agreements for the Libraries Divi- sion of GLL. I work closely with the Procurement Manager for the organi- sation as a whole, to ensure that we are adhering to procurement regulations, and I become personally involved with major purchases, such as furniture and fittings for libraries, IT hardware and software, book stock and e-resources. I am involved with discussions on price
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