You might well feel confused by the language of procurement. Try getting your head around grants, competitive tendering, standing orders, service level agreements, service redesign, waivers and EU regulations! You may however have felt some recent impact in Edinburgh, as grants are changed to alternate procurement processes, and coproduction is an expectation of the sector in looking at service redesign.
Here at EVOC our heads are just about exploding trying to input to the numerous live service redesigns as well as trying to read the small print in the competitive tendering and grants processes. What seems like common sense to us can sometime just be quickly dismissed with the mention of EU legislation, but should it be?
With the transformation programme at the City of Edinburgh Council, all purchase of external services from the very start of a process will now go through the procurement team and will no longer be decided by departmental service delivery teams. Hopefully this will mean process will become more consistent – but at what cost of standardisation? EVOC have been asked to work with the Procurement team to try and ensure that some of the recently contested and we would argue unfair practices disadvantaging small local organisations that we have seen recently can be mitigated. We of course understand the need to stay within EU procurement law but maybe there are ways of working that will mean the small local organisation is given a fairer more level playing field. It is complex, but not impossible – it takes courage and a real will.
Afterall, if the law is supposed to make procurement fair – what is fair about enormous national organisations with bid-writing teams hoovering-up local contracts against medium-sized £500k turnover charities embedded within, and indeed started by, local communities?
The first meeting held was extremely positive; really listening to what we had to say and reassuring us that change to process is possible. An open ongoing dialogue is really what we hope for, with our advice and guidance being sought for the new CEC procurement guidelines and our input early on in the procurement process, rather than at a stage where it is too late to do anything.
All too late for some we know, as we see organisations around us closing, but perhaps this process can reduce the future issues and promote true coproduction with communities and the organisations that were set-up by them. At this time of the introduction of localities surely the small local organisation has an even bigger part to play with its specific local knowledge and its ability to be quick and responsive without the bureaucratic ties of large public sector organisations.
Come on City of Edinburgh Council you can do it – procure to be bold!
We aim to hold a thinkSpace to consider these issues in late spring 2016. Please keep a look out here for details: https://www.evoc.org.uk/thinkspace/events-programme/
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