Agenda item

That the Procurement Strategy be recommended to Cabinet for approval.

The Chief Officer (Governance) presented the proposed Procurement Strategy which set out seven overarching principles on how procurement activities would be carried out, which would be largely achieved by complying with the recently approved Contract Procedure Rules (CPRs).  Linked to the Improvement Priorities, the two outcomes were to achieve value for money and to contribute to the local economy through spending in the local area, the use of community benefit clauses and by targeting contracts to social enterprises.  The action plan would clarify expectations on community benefit clauses and would be underpinned by a series of performance indicators subject to monitoring.

The Chairman supported the focus on helping the local economy and asked for the figure spent on Flintshire based businesses in 2014/15, omitted from the foreword of the Strategy.  The Chief Officer agreed to share this with the Committee.

Councillor Billy Mullin said that whilst the Welsh Government (WG) expected spend to be targeted within Wales, the intention was to extend this to the Mersey Dee Alliance area to reflect the fact that Flintshire was on the border with England.

Councillor Paul Shotton welcomed the community benefits and opportunities for local businesses in partnership with the Federation of Small Businesses and Deeside Business Forum.

The Chief Officer referred to previous discussions on CPRs and explained that Economic Development and Procurement teams were helping to target local spend at small to medium enterprises.  Work was being undertaken with Denbighshire County Council to maximise the use of community benefit clauses to be deployed as appropriate in contracts.

In response to a comment from the Chairman, the Chief Executive referred to the 2015 baseline figure of 52% spend with North Wales businesses and positive contributions already made on community benefits.

The Chief Officer spoke about changes to the community benefits threshold and to maximise their use across as many contracts as possible.

Whilst supporting opportunities for local businesses, Councillor Robin Guest highlighted the importance of achieving value for money.  Councillor Peter Curtis agreed with the need to balance quality and cost, recognising that cross-border services and skills may be required.

Councillor Arnold Woolley raised queries on skills required for contract management, the approach to dealing with complaints and the extended use of sub-contractors.  The Chief Officer referred to debate by the Audit Committee resulting in outcomes for training to highlight contract management obligations and for progress to be reported to the Audit Committee in January 2017.  He pointed out that the use of sub-contractors could be reasonable depending on the contract and that the number of complaints should be considered within the context of the Council’s overall spend.  He went on to give explanation on the mechanism for controlling contract management within the approved CPRs including powers for principal contractors to deal with under-performing sub-contractors.

Councillor Aaron Shotton highlighted the need to raise evidence-based complaints and explained that the concerns raised at the Audit Committee meeting had in fact involved mitigating factors.  He spoke about further work on procurement to identify trends.

In response to Councillor Woolley’s comments about skills for contract management, the Chief Officer advised that a performance indicator had been set and that restructuring of the shared Procurement service would create business partner equivalents to focus on specific areas.

The Committee supported Councillor Woolley’s proposal to recommend approval of the Strategy.

RESOLVED:

That the Procurement Strategy be recommended to Cabinet for approval.