Commissioning & Procurement
Our Vision
"Delivering best value sustainable solutions for the
people of Northumberland through smart innovative
procurement."
Category Spend for 2009 - 2010
Click on the graph for larger image
Commercial Strategy
Commissioning and procurement is at the heart of everything the
Council does. Local Authorities are large spenders of public
money and Northumberland County Council spent approx £395m last
financial year (2009/2010) on goods, works and services.
It is therefore important we ensure a balance between
achieving efficiency savings and the effective social, economic and
environmental well-being goals to which the Council is
committed.
Traditionally commissioning and procurement are related to
determining whether it was more cost effective to provide services
directly or to procure an external organisation to provide services
on behalf of the local authority i.e. a Make or Buy
Decision.
However, commissioning should be seen as the entire process of
assessing need based on sound social intelligence, prioritising
areas for review based on this need, determining the most
appropriate solution to addressing need; and then delivering the
new commissioning option. It also refers to the ongoing
monitoring and review of outcomes and the impacts derived from
these commissioning decisions. Procurement is the
process of buying goods and services.
Please see the link to our Commercial Strategy which
is now the final version following months of
public consultation and workshops with businesses and
organisations in Northumberland. We will soon publish
the action plan and feedback to everyone who took part in the
consultation exercise. The action plan and strategy will
be live documents and will be reviewed regularly. Click here to
view Commercial Strategy
Useful Websites
- The Procurement Centre Project
www.go-tenders.co.uk
The Procurement Centre offer a friendly, hands-on support
service to businesses, social enterprises and community and
voluntary groups in Northumberland who would like to win business
from the public sector both locally and nationally.
- North Eastern Purchasing Organisation
(NEPO)
www.nepoportal.org
In addition to its own procurement arrangements, the Council is
a member of a local buying consortium called the North Eastern
Purchasing Organisation (NEPO), where 12 of the region’s local
authorities have combined their purchasing power to negotiate joint
contracts. The Council has successfully used NEPO’s framework
contracts for a variety of goods and services and this has enabled
the Council to take advantage of the more competitive prices and
terms under NEPO contracts and has provided cost benefits. We
also use the ProContract electronic tendering system which is part
of the NEPO portal.
- Office of Government Commerce (OGC)
www.ogc.gov.uk
The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) is an independent office
of HM Treasury, established to help Government deliver best value
from its spending. It promotes and fosters collaborative
procurement across the public sector to deliver better value for
money and better public services. As a Council we can take
advantage of some national contracts via Buying Solutions, the
executive agency of OGC. Buying Solutions ( http://www.buyingsolutions.gov.uk/
), provides easy access to more than 500,000 products and services,
through a range of frameworks as well as a number of managed
services, including telecommunications, e-mail and web services,
energy and eCommerce.
- OGC Procurement Policy Notes
The OGC's Procurement Policy Divison issues procurement policy
notes (PPNs) to public sector organisations to provide guidance on,
or request information about, areas of public procurement
policy.
Click on the link below to see the OGC's Procurement Policy
Notes which may be of interest.
http://www.ogc.gov.uk/procurement_policy_and_application_of_eu_rules_procurement_policy_notes.asp
- North East Improvement and Efficiency Partnership
(NEIEP)
www.northeastiep.gov.uk
The North East Regional Improvement & Efficiency Partnership
(RIEP/NEIEP) is one of nine in England. The NEIEP is made up
of all 12 North East Councils and 4 Fire & Rescue
authorities. The RIEP is run for local authorities, by local
authorities and Programme Boards are established, comprising the
most senior Council and FRS officers in the region.
Northumberland County Council procurement officers have an input to
regional work and development regarding collaborative
procurement.
