Conference Review
Supplier diversity and equality in procurement were the key issues discussed at the recent Central Buying Consortium Annual Conference and Exhibition, reports GO Features Editor Morven MacNeil.
Public authorities are increasingly recognising the value and contribution of their procurement teams. With greater emphasis being placed on supplier diversity, the procurement function has an even more fundamental role to play in securing best value.
Councils have responsibility for local economic and social development, and with the current financial downturn they need to develop better ways to help local small businesses. This requires deeper and innovative thinking, beyond the prime contractor and into the supply chain.
Enactment of the forthcoming Equality Bill will place new responsibilities on the public sector to ensure transparency in their reporting and monitoring on gender, pay, ethnic and disability employment issues. Where the public sector duty extends to suppliers, the same reporting requirements will be necessary.
To address this challenge, the theme for this year’s Central Buying Consortium (CBC) Annual Conference and Exhibition, which was organised by BiP Solutions and took place recently at One Great George Street, London, was ‘Supplier Diversity in the Procurement Decision’. The purpose of the conference was to increase the knowledge of procurement professionals and give some practical advice on how procurement can support the cohesion and equalities agenda.
Speakers included Neil Jones, Chairman, Central Buying Consortium; David
Smith, Commercial Director, Department for Work and Pensions (DWP); Debasish
Sen, Federation of Small Businesses; Mandy Wright, Associate Director,
Improvement and Development Agency for Local Government (IDeA); Allan
Bouglas, Director of Development, Committed2Equality; and Ian Heptonstall,
Managing Director, Business to Business.
Providing an update on CBC’s recent activity, Chairman Neil Jones informed delegates that the consortium works on collaborative contracts totalling around £250 million a year, and is seeing a lot more point-to-point collaboration. For example, Hampshire County Council is working with Hampshire Constabulary and West Sussex County Council on a temporary workers contract which will have an estimated annual turnover of £20 million.
Commenting on the theme of the conference, Mr Jones said: “It is very important now in many of our authorities to see the wider corporate agenda and how we can help deliver those objectives. It’s in that area where we should be looking beyond price, by addressing equality and diversity within the supplier base.”
David Smith, Commercial Director for DWP, explained that policy is increasingly being delivered through procurement. He said: “For a procurement professional, delivering policy and carrying out our legislative obligations is a good thing if it’s done well and fairly.
“The DWP is asked increasingly to deliver its objectives, both social and others, through our expenditure, procurement and choosing of the right suppliers; and through managing and working with our suppliers to ensure that they share our values and do the things that we would do.
“We are important players in equality and DWP itself has a lead on some equality areas for government. We believe that integrating equality into the procurement process will further improve the quality of our services. We have evidence that it does. DWP has a diverse supplier base, including SMEs, third sector organisations and start-up businesses. In our experience, where social regeneration is needed, a diverse supplier base actually adds value.
“The equality landscape has changed enormously in the last five to ten years. We in procurement have a highly proactive role because the public sector has an enormous spending power.”
Mandy Wright, Associate Director at the IDeA, told delegates that the IDeA has just completed a survey with the Society of Procurement Officers in Local Government (SOPO) and the Equality and Human Rights Commission which has shown that employees’ procurement knowledge and performance is not consistent, partly because professionals are not sure about their role.
Ms Wright also discussed the forthcoming Equality Bill which she believes will introduce a single public equality duty covering race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, faith and age.
She said: “It’s clear that there’s going to be something specific about equalities procurement. Reviews in the past have recommended strengthening the law, so we are absolutely clear that public bodies should use procurement as a tool for achieving greater equality.
“People want authoritative guidance; but in local government they would like it to be much more sector-specific and ideally service-specific, and be much more concrete. Then people can see what they’re supposed to be doing.”
Closing the conference, Mr Jones thanked speakers for their informative and insightful contributions, and hoped that delegates had learned more about equality in procurement and supplier diversity.