How Brexit is transforming public sector procurement as system is streamlined: Michelle Walker
This year has seen major change across the public sector procurement landscape. The regulations that govern public sector organisations – councils, the NHS, the police, universities, etc – have been transformed following the UK’s departure from the European Union.
Brexit gave the UK relative autonomy in setting our own direction for the way in which we manage public sector spend, though our responsibility to treat suppliers and providers fairly and transparently remain.
These changes will take effect from October 28 and will see the current Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (which came directly from the EU Directive 2014/24) will be replaced by the Procurement Act 2023. The act hopes to streamline the procurement processes and give the public sector the opportunity to introduce more innovative ways of engaging with suppliers and improving the experience for customers.
As well as our legal and compliance obligation, a key focus of procurement has always been, and will always be, cost efficiencies and savings. In these challenging financial times, these goals can be increasingly difficult to achieve.
Wage increases, inflation and the cost of raw materials and component parts all factor into the costs we’re charged and securing cost savings against this backdrop can feel like an impossible task.
There are, however, many other ways in which procurement can add value to an organisation; supporting strong supplier relationships, ensuring our market knowledge and insights allow us to be at the forefront of innovation; working within our markets to embed the Social Value and Sustainability agenda; ensuring our contracts deliver against their requirements with an effective contract management regime and managing our procurement activities and resources to reduce transaction costs all add benefits over and above direct cost savings.
In addition to the above, there are other pressing matters on the agenda at the moment, not least of which are the continuing challenges in recruiting staff into procurement roles at all levels.
As the profile of procurement as a strategic partner within an organisation is rising, so is the difficulty in recruiting people with the right attributes and skills.
Whilst new in the role as Head of Procurement Services at YPO, I have a thirty-year career in public sector procurement and like most others at the time “fell into” the profession back in 1994.
There are significant efforts being made to promote the profession as a career of choice amongst graduates and at YPO we are proud of our engagement with the apprenticeship route to employment, something which is being embraced across the public sector and is drawing a younger, enthusiastic talent pool into the profession.
There are also a number of procurement graduate schemes within the public sector, and as well as really engaging with this demographic, they really help in getting the word out about what an interesting and rewarding career public sector procurement is.
As well as targeting the younger generations, there are many transferrable skills from other careers that make the move into procurement possible. My own working life started in retail and customer service and the skills I learned back then are still brought into play on a very regular basis when speaking with colleagues, customers and suppliers.
Michelle Walker is head of procurement services for YPO