FEATURE FOCUS: SMART PROCUREMENT STRATEGIES
The Procurement Act: awareness, understanding and preparedness Andrea Smith, Executive Director, Procurement at YPO, discusses the Procurement Act 2023
and the procurement changes it brings for educators
to encourage transparency in public sector tendering by bringing all available information together.
The platform also aims to digitise the single procurement document through the Supplier Information functionality, whereby suppliers only need to enter information once, allowing schools to access it directly through the portal.
Routes to Market
Existing procurement processes will be replaced by two competitive routes and a third option for direct awards in specific circumstances: · Open procedures, allowing a single-stage open competition with no restrictions.
· Competitive flexible procedure for organisations to create and design own processes for awarding a contract.
· Direct awards are still possible in limited, specific circumstances, such as emergencies or where there is an overriding public interest in doing so.
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any education providers across England, Wales and Northern Ireland will soon be spending precious time scratching their heads over changes to procurement regulations. While the Procurement Act 2023 is designed to increase the transparency of procurement practices, the wave of challenges facing schools means it will be no silver bullet – especially to a sector that is as time and cash poor as it has ever been.
For Operating within tighter budgets, schools have faced pressure to make effective procurement decisions that deliver the right resources, at the right price. Realising the benefits of effective procurement can ease educators’ wallets and workloads. However, taking on the administrative challenge of improving procurement efficiency is no simple task.
After much scrutiny into how to best give schools a helping hand, at YPO we’re pushing to convert awareness of the challenges presented by the reforms into tangible knowledge on how to tackle them. This crucial step should lead the way to smarter resources and framework procurement.
Ineffective practices resulting from a lack of understanding of procurement processes can cause unnecessary headaches. Steps to
improve procurement, on the flip side, is an obtainable measure which frees up crucial resources and capital to be spent elsewhere – a rare low hanging fruit for educators.
The Procurement Act – what is it? Passed in 2023, the Procurement Reform Act is set to transform purchasing across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. After a lengthy consultation process, the intention is to make compliant processes quicker, simpler and more transparent – it comes into effect on October 28th 2024.
There are five elements most relevant to education providers:
Procurement Notices
Transparency is a core focus of the new rules, with changes that will increase the amount of admin required to run procurements, specifically the number of notices that will need to be published.
The notice requirements will be part of each stage of the procurement process to allow full visibility across the procurement lifecycle, from planning to tender, contract award, contract management, and termination.
Centralised Digital Platform
The government is building a new centralised digital platform for public procurements
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www.education-today.co.uk
Frameworks and Dynamic Markets Frameworks will primarily operate as they did before with one exception that the Act introduces open frameworks designed to be more flexible and accessible for suppliers. Dynamic Purchasing Systems (DPS) will be replaced with Dynamic Markets, a tool available to public sector bodies for all purchases of goods, services, or work. A couple of significant changes are that a Tender Notice is required for each procurement, and that a dynamic market cannot be used for a below-threshold contract. Training and Guidance
Acknowledging the significant impact of the biggest change to public procurement in a generation, the government offers a free training package to help public sector organisations implement the new rules. The learning and development opportunity is accessible through the government’s Commercial College at: www.
govcommercialcollege.co.uk
The scale of reform
The reforms ultimately aim to make procurement practices better equipped to meet the UK’s demands. However, when the law comes into effect in October, the theory behind it will become practice – a step many, through no fault of their own, may not be best prepared to face.
The Act will redefine almost every aspect of the procurement process, from the introduction of procurement notices, to the
September 2024
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