The Sum of the Whole....

Without question we are facing a new reality, one that is asking much of Government, businesses and citizens alike. 2020 has been a year of enforced and rapid change yet the stark truth is that we are facing a future with fewer resources yet ever-increasing societal demands.

There is of course the positive and welcome news that the Bank of England will intervene to ensure our economy is as robust as it can be, but a GCSE in maths or economics will tell you that this is not a bottomless vessel. Somewhere, somehow, things must change.

Enter the might of public sector procurement, spending as it does close to ￡280Bn annually on goods and services. By any stretch this is a significant sum and one that used wisely can effect real change for positive impact. The key question is how smartly is this sum being invested today, what more can be done and from where will the savings come?

In FY 2018 Central Government & Health (according the Institute for Government – IFG), procured goods and services in the region of ￡178Bn, and local government in the region of ￡98Bn. This is a staggering sum and one where there are still many efficiencies to be gained. Total spending including non-procured items topped out at a significant ￡847Bn. An impressive 42% of the ￡2Tr GDP for that year.

There is however considerable scope for improvement and changing the way the public services are procured and delivered. Notwithstanding the shift towards remote and mobile working, accelerated from the consequences of COVID 19, there remains much that cannot be digitally enabled. Herein lies a significant opportunity, freeing up valuable taxpayer contributions to deliver greater value.

How to do this? This is the fundamental question.

There are many well intentioned procurement professionals in organisations throughout the country working hard to achieve greater value, improve outputs whilst delivering immediate savings. Each has the end-goal of greater efficiencies, better integrated supply chains and improved outcomes. This is the key motivation for many a public sector worker and clearly, it’s not just about the money, outcomes really matter.

But in this willingness to achieve more there is an inherent and perhaps counter intuitive structure that is developing. Each procurement team are seeking better ways to work, remaining close to their customers, whether they may be a unitary authority, a borough council and non-departmental public body or a local town council. In having so many procurement groups working hard there is an opportunity to bring them together, the length and the breadth of the country, to ensure that every last ounce of data gleaned from their work is better informing the bigger picture and helping to shape future decision making.

Transparency of data and integrated decision making will inform better decision making, it will enable local choices to be made where local choices matter. It will support the growth of small business and helping to build strong local communities, and equally where choices need to be scaled up and aggregated for better value, this will be enabled in a more timely and joined up fashion.

There should only be one winner in the race to deliver better value for public money and it has to be the taxpayer, the citizen from where everything starts. We must look to leverage the talents and capabilities of the many procurement professionals throughout the country, giving them the opportunity for the sum of the whole to be greater than the sum of the parts.

There’s no question that the years ahead will be challenging, but with greater teamwork, cross organisational collaboration and really leveraging the value of the data, we will all do the right thing and achieve the best outcomes possible for the country.

Public Sector procurement run efficiently and effectively, joined-up across the numerous facets of the system, can be an enabler for real, impactful and sustainable change, not only for saving money, but for much improved outcomes.