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Librarians have a limited amount of time. If they don’t get their contracts sorted out, they lose access so eventually they’re forced to sign something they don’t want.
The cost and opportunity of transparency
New procurement regulations mean more work for public bodies, including libraries. Gavin Phillips, SUPC, ex- plains the risks and opportunities for library, information and knowledge services in all sectors.
EW post-Brexit regulations designed to increase deal transparency in the public sector
are expected to put pressure on all public bodies. In addition to this, concerns about AI and cybersecurity could also be adding new layers of risk to the buying processes.
The increased workload is likely to force changes to how many institutions undertake purchasing at a time when they face cuts to spending power and workforces.
Southern Universities Purchasing Consortium (SUPC), brings buyers and suppliers together through purchasing frameworks. These frameworks aim to ease pressure on buyers and so SUPC needs to remain aware of where new pressure is occurring.
“The Procurement Act (replacing the Public Contracts Regulations in February 2025) brings a degree of uncertainty in terms of the processes, what buyers have to do, what notices they have to publish and where,” says Gavin Phillips, Category Manager, Academic Services, at SUPC, adding: “Plus, new regulations means a reset of case law, so there’s no hugely clear guidance until they are in place.”
Making time
The opportunity for procurement framework providers like SUPC comes from frameworks and their mem- ber-level contracts having a four-year life span. It means that a framework
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could potentially give an institution an eight-year breathing space.
If an SUPC framework meets the needs of those most affected by changes in the environment, they will see more business being done through their frameworks. But this requires a certain amount of forecast- ing and prediction.
At the time of this interview Gavin was
finalising the SUPC ‘Books, e-books and associated services’ tender which will be published in January 2025, with the resulting framework agreement due to launch in June. This framework will operate under what will then be the old regulations, giving institutions time to see how the new rules settle in.
Workload Gavin said: “Under the pre-2025 regu- lations, some procurement notices can be published after the event,” but added, “from February 2025 the scale of manda- tory notices increases significantly in both number and scope. “While this improves transparency of expenditure in the public sector, it will also have significant impact on procure- ment workload. Many university pro- curement teams will find this particularly challenging, especially if using routes to market other than framework agreements.” SUPC framework users can continue as they are and remain compliant, while get- ting used to the new regulations and the resourcing implications. But Gavin points out that a lot of buying is done outside of Framework Agreements, saying: “There’s a lot going on which is not covered by any framework and that’s going to be harder under the new regulations. These could
Gavin Phillips.
be suppliers of unique resources or sup- pliers who don’t engage with consortia. The amount of administration in making all of that compliant makes a compelling case for using Framework Agreements wherever possible and for organisations like SUPC to develop the scope of the frameworks we offer.”
New sector consolidation Smaller institutions, and smaller deals which have until now been able to remain compliant without any big changes in working practices, could need a rethink. Gavin believes this to be the case for schools in particular: “This could mean the secondary school sector will take a significant step closer to HE in the way it procures content. Text book buying in schools (not library buying) may no longer be a small job done on the sidelines.
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