Issue - meetings

As detailed in the recommendations.

Councillor Johnson introduced the report and explained that the Council continued to operate a joint procurement service with Denbighshire County Council, with Denbighshire acting as the lead authority.

As part of the service level agreement, the joint procurement service produced a joint annual report on its regulated procurement activities.

The report was presented to Cabinet for the purposed of providing an annual update on procurement performance for 2021/22.

The report also provided Cabinet with an update on ‘FastTrack’, an initiative launched in 2021/22, which gave suppliers the option to be paid as soon as their invoice was authorised and ahead of their payment terms, in exchange for a small, pre-agreed rebate.  The rebate was applied as the invoice was paid and was proportionate to how many days the payment was accelerated by.  The Free Pay initiative also provided small businesses and suppliers with accelerated payments for free.

The Chief Officer (Governance) said there was an increasing percentage of contracts containing community benefits which was pleasing and provided a good model for internal collaboration that would be needed in relation to carbon reduction.  He emphasised the importance of Free Pay and FastTrack for small local businesses.

RESOLVED:

(a)       That the Procurement Annual Report for 2021/22 be endorsed; and

(b)       That the progress with the FastTrack and Free Pay initiatives be noted.