I recently attended the Procurement Act Live conference in London, along with some of my Hub colleagues. It was an interesting day with helpful discussions about embedding the Procurement Act, as well as looking at both challenges and improvements it may bring to public sector procurement.
There were a range of speakers from across the public sector procurement community, alongside suppliers and lawyers that brought some new and interesting points to the discussion. While there was a lot of useful insight, these are my key takeaways.
- KPIs at pre-market engagement (PME): under the Act, there is a requirement (in some cases!) to publish KPIs and report annually on them. While KPIs in contracts aren’t new, the requirement to publish them on Find a Tender is. As such, it is important that the KPIs work for the contract and are realistic for the winning supplier to meet. Including a discussion around KPIs at PME will allow to the market to feedback on their suitability and gain buy-in from suppliers early on. I recently attended the Procurement Act Live conference in London, along with some of my Hub colleagues. It was an interesting day with helpful discussions about embedding the Procurement Act, as well as looking at both challenges and improvements it may bring to public sector procurement.
- Data quality in notices: while the procurement and contract management notices can be modified, the modification does not remove the previous information within the notice, it will be permanently visible alongside the new modified information. It is therefore important to check and then double check the information you are publishing, so the correct information is published in the first instance.
- Procurement qualifications and experience are both key: I am a massive supporter of procurement training and qualifications, and would permanently be in some form of learning if I were able. It was interesting to hear others’ view on the importance of official qualifications such as CIPS alongside experience gained from working in the profession; both elements are useful and each supports the other. I have found both studying towards my MCIPs and my LLM has given me a deeper understanding of the issues faced within public procurement. Equally, my on-the-job experience has brought some textbook theories to life. With the NHS – CIPS Academy now live and supporting a variety of routes to attain MCIPs, I would suggest colleagues take this opportunity to achieve the qualification
On another note, we are shortly starting our next 12 month legal training programme with Mills and Reeve for our East of England NHS procurement community. It will include online training sessions alongside two in-person days.
We are still finalising the full programme of topics, but they will cover the Procurement Act and the Provider Selection Regime. The first webinar will be held on the 26th November and will look specifically at PSR cases and tricky issues that have come up in the 22 months that PSR has been in place.
If you have questions about our legal training programme or how regulations might impact your procurement, don’t hesitate to get in touch: [email protected]