Who Is Policing the Procurement Act in the Age of AI?
In this episode Gemma Waring and Jeremy Brim look at how the new Procurement Act is bedding in, what happened to the body meant to police it, what Andy Burnham's changes to social value mean, and how all of it has collided with AI.
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Gemma Waring of G Waring Consulting is back on the Red Review. Gemma has spent nearly 20 years in public sector procurement and tendering, and unusually she has worked on both sides of the fence, writing bids for suppliers and helping buyers run full end-to-end procurements. In this episode she and Jeremy Brim look at how the new Procurement Act is bedding in, what happened to the body meant to police it, what Andy Burnham's changes to social value mean, and how all of it has collided with AI.
The conversation went wildly off script, in the best way. Here is what came out of it.
How has the Procurement Act gone so far?
The Procurement Act came into force in February 2025. As Jeremy pointed out, UK public sector was still buying under rules inherited from the EU nearly ten years after the Brexit vote, so a reset was long overdue.
Gemma's view is that the thinking behind the Act is good, but the rollout has been bumpy:
The Act was delayed by the change of government, which meant documents like the National Procurement Policy Statement had to be rewritten
Training for buyers came out well before go-live, then the rules changed, so many people no longer trusted what they had been taught, or had forgotten it
The training covered facts about what had changed, not how to put it into practice. Gemma was still delivering refresher training throughout last year because people did not feel confident
Uptake has been patchy. Some people are early adopters, some will do nothing until they have to, and a big group in the middle are just getting through the day job
Jeremy added that plenty of the building blocks are sensible: a central digital platform where your supplier details are held once, and published notices on Find a Tender that give you a heads up on what is coming. They are only really useful if buyers do them consistently.
Who is policing the Procurement Act?
This was the trigger for the episode, a LinkedIn post from Gemma on the Procurement Review Unit (PRU).
The PRU was meant to be the auditor, a bit like the FCA for the financial sector. It had three strands:
Looking into issues with individual procurements, much like the old mystery shopper service
Looking at procurement compliance trends, such as buyers not publishing notices or not doing pre-market engagement properly
Supplier debarment
Gemma was always slightly suspicious of it, because it sat inside government rather than outside, which felt like marking your own homework. And in practice, it did very little. In the latest reporting, only 10 cases had been raised to the PRU about buyer activity. Eight were out of scope and two went to triage, with no published outcome since. The supplier debarment list, as far as Gemma is aware, is still a blank spreadsheet.
Part of the problem is scope. The PRU only really covered the things suppliers can traditionally challenge anyway, such as transparency, process, record keeping and fair evaluation. Whether a buyer was putting barriers in front of SMEs, or following the National Procurement Policy Statement and embedding social value, was outside its remit.
What happens now the PRU has been disbanded?
The unit has gone, but the three strands have been reassigned:
If your complaint is about a buyer, whether an individual procurement or a repeated issue, it goes to Procurement Compliance and Oversight under the Cabinet Office
If it is about supplier debarment, that has moved to the Government Commercial Agency (GCA)
Gemma has put the links in her LinkedIn post, and is waiting to see the next annual report to find out what has actually happened since the handover. Jeremy's obvious follow-up was who you complain to if your complaint is about the GCA. The honest answer was probably the Cabinet Office.
Why are tenders getting more bland?
Jeremy shared something he is seeing a lot in his core construction market. Procurements are being dumbed down to make them more resistant to challenge. His theory is an unintended consequence of the Act, where buyers feel more on the hook for what bidders say in their bids, and so prefer scoring that is easy to defend.
The result is a growing number of frameworks where:
Answer every question and you get all of the points
Evidence is a couple of technical ability certificates or client signed case studies per lot
Added value and innovation have been removed from scoring
Gemma's point was that this boils down to a pricing competition, because everyone gets through the quality stage. Jeremy's example was Construction Professional Services 2, the biggest construction consulting framework in history. It was meant to appoint around 15 firms to each of the top lots, and ended up appointing nearer 30, because so many firms could answer every question.
Gemma raised the knock-on effect. If frameworks become that big, they become unwieldy to use, which risks more direct awards rather than mini competitions. Is that really what the Act's value for money and public benefit objectives were aiming for?
Is the new procurement environment made for AI?
This is where the two themes collide. Jeremy's view is that the Act and the rise of AI have smashed into each other at exactly the wrong moment.
On a recent contractor framework, the questions were literally called prompts, and each one told you which bit of the spec to cover. You could drop that straight into Copilot and play it back
Gemma is seeing more scenario based questions, such as "here is an implementation challenge, describe how you would address it". Her question was how procurement teams think that is AI proof, because it is just as easy for AI to answer as a traditional question
It favours organisations that got savvy early. If you already have your case studies and experience set up to feed the AI, you are far ahead of those who do not
There are some bright spots. Jeremy gave credit to Scape, which kept added value as a scoring criteria in the selection stage of its recent major construction framework. As he put it, how else will firms differentiate?
What goes wrong when people use AI badly on bids?
Both guests had plenty of examples:
Subject matter experts being emailed a question and pasting it straight into ChatGPT, then sending back whatever it produces. Jeremy has spoken to procurement people about this and it is really annoying them
Senior people saying "let's bid that, I'll write it tonight" when what they mean is chucking it into Copilot and getting slop out. That hits win rate, brand and morale
Information security. Gemma runs into this in training all the time. People use AI through a work account and give away their win rate, competitor analysis and details about other bids. Jeremy has also heard of cases where information put into platforms has turned up elsewhere on the internet
Facts. AI is predictive, not factual, and for bids it will give you roughly what it gives everybody else. Gemma's line was that copying and pasting what it gives you is how to do yourself out of a job as a bid writer
Jeremy's answer is the same one he gave in the episode with Julian Henley. AI should be an enabler to your approach, not the answer in itself. His new AI powered bid writing workshop is built on that idea, a bid process that is AI enabled, rather than the other way round. Gemma said the timing of the course feels spot on.
What has Andy Burnham changed on social value?
This was the part Gemma found a little bit gutting. The National Procurement Policy Statement sits alongside the Act and sets the national direction for social value. It was designed to be updated as priorities change, which Gemma thinks is a sensible approach. It has now been rewritten for the third time, under the Conservatives, then Starmer, and now Andy Burnham.
What has changed:
For central government contracts of 5 million pounds and above, social value now carries 20% of the weighting, up from 10%. From 1 million up to 5 million it stays at 10%
The previous eight themes, including health and wellbeing, community support and tackling crime, have been cut back to essentially two, job creation and skills
There is a mention of a published list of community programmes, which Gemma supports in principle, but she cannot see who will keep it up to date or vet who is on it
It is aimed at central government. There are no mandatory requirements for the huge amount of spend in local government and the NHS, and no coordinated support for small procurement teams to embed it
Gemma's concerns went deeper than the themes. She wants to see social value delivered when the contract is running, rather than promised in a bid and ticked off. Who counts the jobs that were promised, and who checks the evidence? It circles right back to the PRU question.
Both of them also felt that boxing social value in as job creation misses a lot. Gemma gave a lovely example of a contractor funding a park revamp in her village, the first in 13 years, where the park is now full of families every weekend. Jeremy's was a business opening a contact centre in a town and providing free Wi-Fi coverage for the whole community, which now earns no points at all.
Gemma also had a tip for IT firms who get asked how many local jobs a software implementation will create. Think laterally: remote work experience, remote jobs, coaching, CV support and mock interviews all count.
How should bidders approach social value now?
Jeremy's advice came back to capture. Go and talk to the client well before the bid, and influence them to put things into the tender that create more value for them and for their communities. Do not be a mercenary and shape a tender purely so that you win to the exclusion of others. His phrase for himself was an ethical capture person, and his view is that you should provide a load of value and simply ask for a share of it in return.
He also said that suppliers should still be thinking about innovation in social value, sustainability and carbon reduction as part of their solution, because these things matter to the end client even if they no longer score.
What are the main takeaways?
The Procurement Act has had a bumpy start, mostly because the training focused on what changed rather than how to apply it
The body meant to police it has been disbanded and its work reassigned, and there is little evidence yet on how well it is working
Tenders are becoming blander and easier to answer, which suits AI and leads to bigger frameworks and more price based decisions
AI is a brilliant tool for bidders, but you need the process, the governance and your own experience behind it
Social value has become more heavily weighted but narrower, and the real test is whether it is delivered
Quick answers
Who is policing the Procurement Act now? The Procurement Review Unit has been disbanded. Complaints about buyers now go to Procurement Compliance and Oversight under the Cabinet Office, and supplier debarment sits with the Government Commercial Agency.
What has Andy Burnham changed in the National Procurement Policy Statement? Social value weighting for central government contracts of 5 million pounds and above has doubled from 10% to 20%, but the previous eight themes have been cut back to essentially job creation and skills.
Is the Procurement Act making bids easier for AI? In many cases, yes. Scoring is simpler, questions often tell you where to find the answer, and scenario questions are just as easy for AI to answer as traditional ones.
How should bid teams use AI? As an enabler to a well designed bid process, with proper governance and information security, not as a way to paste in questions and copy out answers.
Gemma runs G Waring Consulting, and is most active on LinkedIn, so search for Gemma Waring and send a message. Jeremy and Gemma plan another catch up in January or February once the new social value rules have started to bite.
Transcript
Jeremy Brim 0:00 So hello and welcome to the Red Review with me, Jeremy Brim. Interesting episode this week, subject that comes up a lot, so I thought I better get a grown up who knows what they're talking about, to come and talk us through it. So update on new procurement act and its interface with social value and then how AI has kind of smashed into the consequences of it, I guess. So I've got back my friend Gemma Waring. Hi, Gemma.
Gemma Waring 0:28 Hi Jeremy, thank you for having me on again.
Jeremy Brim 0:31 No worries, it's always a pleasure and educational at the very least. So we best, because we've done some webinars that have gone out as podcast episodes in the past and things, but you should probably give the audience a bit more, let's get them back up to speed with who you are, what you get up to. So who you are, where you've come from, and what you get up to these days, I guess.
Gemma Waring 0:52 Okay, I'll keep it as short as possible because I know we've got tonnes to talk about on this episode. So I've basically been working in public sector, exclusively pretty much public sector procurement and tendering since about 2008, 2009. So coming up to nearly 20 years, which is quite scary. And I came from a commercial sales background. I'd been involved in procurement at a very junior level for a department store, but more retail procurement. And then I was working as a commercial sales manager, selling corporate hospitality at at a football ground and I was also doing a bit of grant writing in the background on a voluntary basis and got picked up by Reading Partnership, who one of the bigger welfare to work companies, a lot of DWP and skills funding sort of contracts helping people get off long term benefits and into work. They said to me, we've seen your CV, we think you'd be a good bid writer. And I said, what's a bid writer? And the rest is history. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeremy Brim 1:59 As everyone does, yeah, yeah, as everyone did at some point in this game, I guess, or most people, yeah.
Gemma Waring 2:09 And I think over the last sort of five or six years, it's really helped my understanding and the work that I can do because I've also started supporting procurement bodies. So traditionally I was just bid writer, training on bid writing, stuff like that. And more recently in my career, I've been able to actually manage full end-to-end procurements, train procurement teams, trained contract management teams, you know, so I've sort of seen it from the other side and the restrictions and issues and challenges that people have on the procurement lens as well as the supplier one.
Jeremy Brim 2:44 Yes, so that's why I follow you closely because you're both sides of the fence, which is quite unusual actually. And so it's really, but you started off our side of the fence. We do get some procurement people who junk ship to this site. like John Williams at SP was a procurement person, wasn't he? And John Kelly at WSP, who's the big dog there, is a chartered procurement person. And it gives you a really quite detailed and interesting insight into what the, how the sort of other side of the fence live. And particularly What's been fantastic to watch with you, and we've done some work together. You've worked with some of my clients on this stuff and coached them on new procurement acts and the procurement world in this new environment. It's a changing world. It's been a changing landscape, and it didn't all go perfectly well in terms of implementation, which we'll get onto, I guess. So what triggered this episode? You did a LinkedIn post about the PRU and so in effect, who's policing procurement hacks. So before we get into that bit, we should probably set the scene for listeners who are not aware of any of this stuff, I guess. So The Labour government pulled the trigger and implemented the new procurement act in February last year, which is the new procurement environment for UK public sector to buy things. So believe it or not, although the Brexit vote happened in 2016, 10 years ago, we were still using, still, yeah, can you believe it?
Gemma Waring 4:21 Gosh.
Jeremy Brim 4:24 As Bernard puts it, we've kind of had a lost decade. We sort of drifted, but we were still using the EU's procurement regulations to buy stuff until February last year. So what's happened? How did that go? What's been your experience and your client's experience? and the bumps in the road, first of all, and then we can get into the policing a bit, which is sort of the heart of your post, I guess.
Gemma Waring 4:52 Yeah, I think that true to form in sort of the current zeitgeist in British politics, I think that the changes in government and the changes in leadership, although they've slowed down under the Labour government, they haven't stopped and that with it brings that those sorts of challenges. So the act was so delayed coming out, obviously it's the 23 act, it only went live last year was because of changes in government, obviously going from conservative to Labour. That required things to be amended. It required rewriting things like the National Procurement Policy Statement, which, you know, Andy Burnham, we're going to talk about has had another chop and hack at, which is actually a little bit gutting because it's significantly reduced the sort of remit in regards to social value. So I think that what happened was there was this, and I'm not, When I say this, it's easy to pick fault, you know, I think having seen the people in the centre of the machine who were in charge of making these legislative changes, pushing them through, doing, you know, imagine trying to train, you know, we know it's hard enough to train a group of people in one organisation. Imagine trying to train the entire public sector in one thing within the space of a short period of time. What happened was is all of this training came out, people did it, but then there was a lag before it went live. Then when it went live, there were changes, so people no longer trusted what they'd been taught. This is from the procurement side, or knew that it was quite out of date by the time they had to do it, or they'd forgotten it. You know, I did a lot of refresher training towards the end of 24 and certainly throughout last year where people were saying, we've done all the training that government have sent us, but it's been a year since that. And when we, you know, we're still not confident in putting it into practise. It was very much facts around what had changed in the act, not how to implement them. So that is what I think has caused the biggest issue in and is always the case with anything to do with the public sector is that you just, it's the same with, you know, the adoption of any change. You know, you have people that are, you know, early adopters really geared up for it, really into it. You've got people that go, will it really change? Do I need to do anything different? I'm not doing anything till I have to. And then a huge group of people in the middle who are just, struggling to get by with the day-to-day and trying to do the best they can. So it's, yeah, it's been patchy in terms of the uptake, definitely.
Jeremy Brim 7:23 And you've also had sort of central digital platform and all of that kind of game going as well. So, which was many of, we should say, at the heart of things, a lot of the basics, a lot of the building blocks of the new procurement act are actually really good ideas. which was born in sort of Boris and Cummings era. And actually, there's some really sensible stuff in there, like central digital platforms should be a wonderful thing where, you know, sort of a lot of your back of house, you know, your SSQ or SQ or PQQ type stuff should be sorted in one go and you just give the clients a code and that's it and all of that. And then how they sort of publish notices that land up on find a tender that give you a heads up that things are coming. All of that, you know, the public bodies in theory publishing data about what they're going to be procuring in the future is perfectly sensible and really useful. if they did it consistently, at least. So there's loads of positives in this. So it's not about, you know, it's not all negative, but it has been bumpier than we would have liked, I guess. So what's the, so coming back to your LinkedIn post, I guess, the other day, So, what's the PRU? So, who's policing the implementation or the use of the PA 23 now?
Gemma Waring 8:52 Yeah, so just this to me is one of the fundamental things that needs to be correct in order for the act to, you know, like you said, making people adhere to it, making sure that it's effective, because I won't name names, but you know, you do hear time and time again, well, who's going to know if we don't? Who's going to cheque that? Who's going to, you know, this is from the procurement side, you know, who's going to know if we don't do that? Who's policing that? Who will, you know, tell me if I've done that wrong or what will the penalty be? You know, what would the penalty be even if I've done something wrong deliberately? I'm not going to gaol for it. I'm not, you know, in most cases, obviously, there's some somewhere it borders on to fraud, but and the procurement review unit, the PRU, was supposed to be that auditor. It was supposed to be, I saw it very much like the FCA is to the financial industry and sector, you know, it was supposed to be that body. I was always suspicious of it because it sat within, not external. So it was sort of marking your own homework, had that kind of feel to it. If you're being uncharitable, but at least it gave active sort of responsibilities. So it said, you know, there were three strands to it. There was, you know, issues with individual procurements could be raised, very much like the mystery shopper service, if anybody remembers that. There was another one around procurement compliance where it was more about general. So if there was a trend like people not publishing certain notices, not doing pre-market engagement properly, things like that. And then the third one was all around the supplier debarment as well. So there was 2 buyer things there to hold buyers to account. It was always a bit appointed ministers will do this and this is the process. And I've definitely met people that were part of the procurement review unit, speaking at events and stuff over the last couple of years. But as my post said, that's kind of dwindled away. activity didn't really take off. As far as I'm aware at the time of recording this, the supplier department list is still a blank Excel spreadsheet. And in the latest reporting, there were 10 cases that were raised to the PRU in regards to buyer activity. Of the 10, eight of them were out of scope and two of them went to triage, which is, you know, is there a genuine issue here or not that we need to work on? And there's been no results or further information on what's happened since that triage. So effectively, nothing's really happened on the ground.
Jeremy Brim 11:38 So, what, what, what was the scope meant to be? Sorry, so how have 8 organisations complained about stuff and it was not relevant?
Gemma Waring 11:46 So the thing that's disappointing about it and one of the things that I was again sort of thinking how much teeth is this body going to have is, it's only really their tradition, what traditionally people are allowed to legally challenge on anyway. So issues around transparency, you know, following process, you know, record keeping, affair evaluations, things like that. Outside of its remit were things like, is an authority putting barriers in place for SMEs or third sector organisations? Out of its remit was, is a buyer actually adhering to the national procurement policy statement and embedding social value in their procurement? So it was really It was really like a halfway house to try and prevent legal challenges, I think. So to allow suppliers a place to go, to have their voice heard, to maybe mediate a solution before legal costs and things like that. But as I said, whether there's no evidence
Jeremy Brim 12:38 Ahh.
Gemma Waring 12:52 to talk of which would say how effective or not that process has been because it hasn't really done anything that's been published yet.
Jeremy Brim 13:01 Yeah, so I mean, I guess it's still relatively early days. And there are various, you know, procurement lawyers on Facebook who publish stuff about challenges that people have raised, etc. And so I won't go too far into that because they'll probably crucify me for saying something wrong. Um, but... It is definitely noticeable the other way around that we are seeing more and more procurements being dumbed down so that they are more resistant to challenge, i.e. people following Crown Commercial Service or now government commercial agencies lead in having very bland scoring criteria. Because in effect, with the new act, a consequence, which I think is an unintended consequence, is that procurement people appear to feel like they, and or client organisations, appear to feel like they are more on the hook for what we bidders say in our bids. They're, you know, they're carrying some risk. If we lie in our bids or, you know, they give us some points for something that's not as easy to justify or demonstrate, they'll in some way be on the hook for it. Perhaps they felt that the PRU would be used against them more than it has been, or there'd be more legal challenges. So we are definitely seeing more and more procurements where added value has been removed as a scoring criteria, for instance. So, the exception of late into my sort of core market of construction, we've had over the last two years a series of GCA or CCS bids that are all, you know, if you get if you answer all of the question, you get all of the points, and that and that's it as a scoring criteria. So, evidence is dealt with. by some technical ability certificates or certificates of past performance, so a client signed case study. So give us two of those per lot, job done. We don't want to know about added value or innovation or anything, which is a taxpayer. I'd like you to know about. And how do you distinguish? So we've ended up
Gemma Waring 15:04 And it boils down to a pricing competition then. Everyone's managed to dot the I's and suddenly you're all through on that Mark and oh look, it's the pricing that decides.
Jeremy Brim 15:25 Well, well, well, Gemma, this is where we've found ourselves. So on Construction Professional Services 2, which is the biggest construction consulting framework in history, they ended up having to appoint 30 firms, pretty much, or there or thereabouts, for the top four lots, multi-dis, architecture, PM and QS, when it was meant to be 15. They've awarded double the places because every man and his dog can answer all of the questions and it actually lends itself. Well, this is the thing that's coming. So this is where I talk a lot about how these days about how the new procurement act and its sort of consequences, positive or negative. have smashed into the onset of AI at the same time. And they actually, they actually are, it's a perfect marriage because, and it's not just GCA. So on the Southern Construction Framework bid recently for contractors, the questions were called prompts, which was interesting. So you need to provide a piece of evidence per prompt. It was almost verbatim what it said. But basically, they told you which bit of their spec related to the question. So it literally said, do so and so on quality management. So prompt #5, do so and so on quality management. Look,
Gemma Waring 16:44 Cover points 13 through to 18 on the spec, yeah.
Jeremy Brim 16:49 So of course you could just put that into co-pilot and it would go and do that and just play it back to them. So
Gemma Waring 16:54 It's so, I mean, it's just a weird time, like you said, there's so many competing objectives there because you've got the need, like you said, I definitely agree with you in terms of the reduction in scoring. I'm actually looking at another framework at the moment that's done pretty much the same thing, you know, You've got to score. You've got a myriad of pets circling you today. Don't be sorry. I'll invite mine on next time. Yeah, no, you've got that. I've seen that in the scoring as well, you know, and basically it's, you know, scoring mechanism and you've got to get
Jeremy Brim 17:16 Yes, sorry, I've got dog and cat. The dog and cat both want to be on the podcast. Sorry, this is Lou, Lou, my cat. This is Bertie, my dog. Yeah, sorry, have a lay dandling.
Gemma Waring 17:32 50 out of 100 on each question to get through. And then, but then I'm also seeing a lot more scenario based stuff. Like you said, I know central government are doing the tax for that. So it's just verification of previous projects. And I'm not quite sure in my own head how procurement people think that that's AI proofed. You know, so rather than giving you an answer that says like, oh, explain your implementation plan, it's here's a scenario where there's an implementation challenge. Describe to me how you would address that challenge. I mean, that's just as AI-able as traditional responses. So I don't. I don't really kind of understand, you know, and like I said, once people have actually, the only thing with me and is that it favours organisations that have got savvy early with AI, whatever tool they use, you know, ChatGPT, Claude, Co-Pilot, whatever, because it's all about the prompts that you give. So if you've already got that background of here's all our experience in case studies, now answer this question and it's asking for evidence or a scenario or, you know, the one that I'm looking at at the moment asks to highlight particularly transferable skills that you would bring to address the scenario from a past example. You know, all of that stuff is if you've got the right prompt and you've got the right back catalogue that you're feeding your AI machine, It's social value questions, price and presentation.
Jeremy Brim 19:20 50% on presentation. Yeah. So we're definitely, yeah, you're right. So we're definitely seeing a change in that. Just to pick up on a couple of points then. So I had a call with the prospect last week who was a head of a bid team, a major contractor, and their biggest problem is stakeholders, SMEs, subject matter experts, technical folk, what we call in the AI game, free balling content. So they're just chucking, they've been emailed a question to write an answer to. And they're just bunging that question into ChatGPT and just taking whatever it spits out. So we're all seeing a lot of that. And that's not very clever. And that is that I've spoken to a lot of procurement people
Gemma Waring 19:55 Yes, seen a lot of that.
Jeremy Brim 20:04 of late, as have you, to quite senior people, and that is ******* them off. So don't do that. So my proposition, so I've just launched this new AI powered bid writing training programme, like a workshop for a day. And the point of that is that it's about transformation or the framework by which you go on the journey with AI enabling it. So it's a bid process that you follow that's AI enabled, not the other way around, because the technology should be an enabler to your approach, not the answer in of itself. because you're just going to get terrible outcomes if you keep doing that. So another consequence they are seeing is senior people saying, oh, well, let's just bid that job because I'll write that stuff tonight. And what they mean is they're going to chuck it in co-pilot and get some slop out. So that's affecting their win rate, it's affecting their brand, it's affecting morale and all sorts of things. So we need to take, it's not about a ChatGPT or a Claude or whatever and bugging some stuff in. There's all sorts of information security implications in that as well. We've had two InfoSec breaches in the last month with fairly major businesses. It's not in the press or anything, but I've heard about it on the jungle drums of where people have put some stuff into platforms and then it's popped up on the internet somewhere else. Not very clever at all. So
Gemma Waring 21:31 Yeah, you would be surprised. That's my number one thing when I deliver training. I've sort of done bits and bobs of training on AI as well, especially over the last year or so, people are suddenly starting to get to grips with it, which is why I think the course that you're offering is really timely and useful. And the amount of people, if I was in a room with 20 people and said, you need to close off your platform. And they're like, what do you mean? And you're like, oh my Lord, you know, because I've even used it and I'm sure this is stuff that is in your course, but you know, and people are amazed. I say things like, what other companies have asked you about this bid? because people are using it through a work account with their e-mail addresses attached to it. I've asked them, you know, to sort of profile those companies. I've asked them to do competitor analysis. I've asked to give their win rate. So people are giving away so, so much. And you just, you have to be so cautious around the ethics and the governance and the QA around it. And I think that you're right. I think a lot of people are sort of bypassing that for the ease. And a lot of people are also forgetting that we were talking just before we started recording about how, you know, nobody ever thought blockbuster video would go out of fashion until streaming in the internet, Netflix was created. Well, who Googles these days? You know, I I would say genuinely among my peer group downwards to, you know, my children are sort of hitting their teenage years now. I'll ask ChatGPT. You know, that Google is not the go-to anymore, but people forget that it's predictive based on what it knows. It's not factually relevant. You know, you have to still cheque the facts of what it's put in, because it could be just giving you probably the, especially when it comes to bidding, it'll be giving you 80% of what it's giving to everybody else. And it's just not, you know, what you're in the game for. You know, that's how to do yourself out of a job as a bid writer is just to, you know, take what it gives you, take it for read. copy and paste it into a response, maybe do a bit of a read through or whatever. That's not what you should be using AI for.
Jeremy Brim 23:46 Yeah, no, it's not. I've got an episode of the podcast booked in on behavioural assessments, for instance. There's a lady called Sally who's becoming a good mate of mine, a very super bright lady, that's in that sort of leadership development, alignment, big decision making, and but particularly behavioural assessments for competitive dialogues and that sort of stuff. And that conversation is going to reflect this one that we're seeing more of that that way, but we're also seeing more pre-bid engagement capture stuff up funnel as well. So, you know, it's an interesting space, but yeah, we should, I guess. The new procurement act and this new environment is creating a procurement environment that is overly lending itself to AI is where we're at. And the clients, there are some frameworks, for instance, that are doing better, I would say. So Scape, for instance, on their major construction framework recently, they released the SQ or SSQ for that. And that had a scoring criteria of added value in it still. And it was quite interesting. So fair play to escape on that. Well done. Because otherwise, how are these organisations going to differentiate? It's going to be interesting whether these frameworks actually, some of them ever get awarded. or in the case of NHS SBS, if the tender ever gets released, because they're in a hold up at the moment with Cabinet Office. But is that frame is their framework too similar to GCAs? Is there is there a direct award thing?
Gemma Waring 25:11 I know. Yeah, and it's like you said, you know, sorry, just that example that you gave, it's about the usability on the other side of it. You know, the popularity of frameworks is the time saving it gives procurement teams with the reassurance that somebody else has done the compliance bit. And if I'm looking at a framework, instead of having 15 people to select from,
Jeremy Brim 25:30 Chessum.
Gemma Waring 25:46 I'm now going to 35 or whatever the number was. How is that valid? Will that not just encourage more direct awarding rather than mini competitions? How is that, you know, conducive to actually meeting the procurement act objectives of value for money and, you know, public benefit? You know, all of those things need to, it's always been a competing you know, bit between the social value and the sort of commercial viability, but How are they going to, how is it going to be usable? You know, how are we going to use these frameworks if they become so unwieldy because they've got to be so big because they've been constructed in a way that allows too many people through? It's practically, it'll start to lose its edge.
Jeremy Brim 26:29 Yeah, I... Yeah, it's interesting because NHS SBS have like 70 odd firms on their consultancy, construction consultancy framework already. And they, so it's kind of different extremes, isn't it? You've got Scape at one end, for instance, you have at the moment two contractors on their major frameworks, for instance, Wilmot Dixon and Morgan Sindel, and they work with them really closely, I think. I'm not that close to it, but it appears that they work with them really closely and drive work through the framework and do lots of valuable stuff. And you kind of got some others a bit more in the middle, like Pagabo, procure partnerships, etc. We've got more on it, but are actually very good at helping clients with the procurement stuff themselves, procurement of projects. And then you've got GCA somewhere where the or CCS where they just act as a post box, really. and they punt out some pipeline, but it's not their idea and they don't help anyone or position anyone for anything. But then you've got NHS SBS who just have a massive list and don't care and don't really have a pipeline and just act completely as a postbox. Excuse me if I'm wrong on this, by the way, with anyone, but that's my perception. I don't offend anyone, but that seems to be how it goes. And there's different horses for different courses. I guess if they're just into making money, having the most runners and riders on it that bring the most work back to them and just get direct awarded, maybe that is the right answer. I don't know. It's for people to make their own judgments, I guess. But we're definitely seeing that. I am hearing, by the way, Gemma, there are bits of government, central government, local government that are looking at award without competition or the modern equivalent of direct award, because they haven't got the procurement people to procure all the stuff.
Gemma Waring 28:13 Yeah, and that is the reality, you know, sort of the lens of where I've come from. That was one of the biggest eye openers for me was the amount of similarities between a big team and a purchasing team in the public sector. You know, they are hamstrung waiting for people to get back to them, their own internal subject matter experts and stakeholders. They've got their own governance processes which slow everything down. you know, that they're underfunded, understaffed, you know, they work like we do in terms of firefighting and everything all at once and then nothing. And it's really, really, that doesn't surprise me at all. And I know that earlier on this year I was involved in looking at a tender for DWP. and the tender was for, had to really cheque what it meant. It was AI resource augmentation and it basically was sort of a recruiter who would be able to supply them with AI experts over the coming three years on a project by project basis to help them integrate AI throughout DWP's functions, including the procurement function.
Jeremy Brim 29:23 That's interesting, isn't it? Because I guess that's the way, again, we're so far away from the agenda, Louisa. It's interesting to us and maybe some of our audience. So
Gemma Waring 29:26 It's interesting to us.
Jeremy Brim 29:37 Oh, and I should say hello. There's a new friend of mine, Owen, reached out to me this week who actually listens to the podcast and gave me some really good pointers. So thank you, Owen. It made my day, actually. I gave him a little call yesterday, so thank you. So it's because sometimes, you know, when I'm editing this podcast at like 11:00 at night or something, sometimes I do wonder, does anyone actually listen to this or does it actually make a difference for people and particularly my business? But apparently it does. So it was lovely. It was lovely to hear actually, because sometimes it's a bit of a lonely place. But I guess for my new friend Owen and others, if so with the PRU then, because we should get back to some sort of agenda.
Gemma Waring 30:01 I'm sure it does. Yeah, we should try and follow a bit of the script.
Jeremy Brim 30:19 Um... Probably not. But anyway, it's fine. We've had a good chat about stuff that matters. So, but if we don't like the outcome of a procurement, what should we do now, do you think?
Gemma Waring 30:28 So basically what's happened is the procurement review unit as a body has disbanded, but those three strands that I talked about earlier have been reassigned and that's the key thing. So although the unit itself doesn't exist, the remit and the responsibilities of it still exist. So basically the two ones related to the buyer. So when a supplier wants to complain about an individual procurement or a systemic or repeated issue with a particular buyer, there's the procurement compliance and oversight underneath the Cabinet Office, which they can access. If it's to do with supplier debarment, the supplier side has gone to GCA. So they handle that now. So you would probably, in the post that you mentioned, I've sort of put the links in specifically of where to go to submit a particular complaint. But that's basically it. So if it's buyer focused, you're going to cabinet offices. If it's supplier focused, it's the GCA. So I'm anticipating the next annual report to see what's actually happened since this crossover has happened.
Jeremy Brim 31:44 So what if you want to complain about the GCA? You complain to the Cabinet Office, who they work for?
Gemma Waring 31:49 Probably, I assume so. They don't seem to, they don't, yeah, there'll be some general channels for redress. I'm sure they've had plenty of them over the supplier information platform and things like that.
Jeremy Brim 31:58 Like when? Well, I would like when they kicked all bid writers off of the bidders call for CWAS 3 because I'd annoyed them. But anyway, sorry for another time. Probably should have written a complaint. But anyway, let it slide. Life's too short. So you and I were both also slightly triggered by Mr. Burnham's change to the MPPS, National Procurement Policy Statement, which I'm sure is a complete coincidence that Nigel Farage made some statements only about two to three weeks before this change about how he thought social value was ********.
Gemma Waring 32:24 Oh yeah.
Jeremy Brim 32:43 and it was about giving jobs to foreign people or whatever it is that he prowls on about. It's not really, so this isn't a political point, it's just that Most of social value is about job creation anyway, because it's largely about apprenticeships and things. And then the nicer stuff was actually about how other types of businesses can make a difference, who can't employ people or don't. So give me your version of events on what's taken place here then. got the context and then what's taking place.
Gemma Waring 33:17 Yeah, so just again for people that aren't fully versed on it, the National Procurement Policy Statement sits alongside the Procurement Act and it's there to give national strategic direction for social value across the public sector. The reason it sits separate to the legislation is that it was designed to be a sort of iterative document. So as priorities change, you know, as I always say to people, if I'd have said to you 20 years ago, carbon neutrality, modern slavery, you would have said, what are you talking about? You know, it's a constantly evolving sector and the issues and topics always change. So the idea was that as required, this document with the strategic direction could be changed. So It was put out under the Conservatives when the change in government happened, then it was rewritten under Starmer. And now Andy Burnham's had a go at rewriting it. So we've seen that bit work in practise. And again, trying to not always be totally cynical and negative. I always said that was one of the things that I thought was a really sensible approach rather than codifying what social value means sort of in the act itself. And what Andy Burnham's done is previously there were eight different sort of focus areas for central government. So when they were procuring contracts above a certain value, 10% of the weighting had to go to social value and they had eight different things that they could ask about. And they ranged across different topics related to things like mental health, you know, health and wellbeing. They had stuff obviously about, you said, job creation and things like that. The primary change under Andy Burnham is that he's changed the requirement from 10% to 20%. And I think that's probably reflective of his work in the Northwest. And The Greater Manchester, I always say the wrong acronym, so forgive me anyone that's listening from there, but the GMCA, I've been doing that for years and years, if not a decade or more anyway, so 20% social value. And that's for 5 million and above anything.
Jeremy Brim 35:23 And over, yeah.
Gemma Waring 35:24 Yeah, anything a million up to 5 million pound in contract value is at 10%. And it is meaningful and it's a good change. However, It's cut those eight things back to sort of, I think, the sub ones within them, but essentially 2, which is just focused on job creation and skills. So it's removed some of those, like you said, the softer things, you know, the community support, the health and wellbeing, the, you know, tackling issues related to crime and stuff like that. that community side of it seems to have gone. However, there is mention in it of a published list of community programmes. And whilst I fully support that, because I believe they should be included, I don't understand how you can have a national list of community programmes, because the idea is that as a supplier, you would then go, let me have a look at the list. I'm bidding to work in X territory. I'll say I'll support that community programme. So that list has got to be kept up to date by somebody. The people that are going on it have got to be vetted by somebody. I just, again, you know, call me cynical, but I can't see how that will play out in in practise, but the disappointing thing, I guess, is that it's very much for central government. You know, there's no mandatory requirements there for sub-central government, which is obviously, you know, a huge amount of spend. There's no direction there still or coordinated support for those perished. very, very small NHS trust or county council procurement teams to embed this. So yeah, and it does, you know, there's back British industry, British, you know, jobs for British people. It does have that kind of tone about it, which again, I don't have any problem with, you know, absolutely, yes, you know, the power of procurement and The more good you can do for the country, the better. But it seems to be a big statement, but hasn't actually addressed any of the issues underneath. Notwithstanding what I've said, also the issue of making sure it actually happens when the contract's being delivered, as opposed to just being stated in a bid and being ticked off as a procurement exercise. You know, that's what I really want to see. in the NPPS is again, you know, circular linking back to the PRU and their role, who's actually making sure this happens, who's counting the jobs in that were promised, you know, for each bid, how's it being evidenced, how's that being QA'd and audited? It still lacks substance for me.
Jeremy Brim 38:08 Yeah, yeah, no, I completely agree with all of that. They've also kind of removed the opportunity for innovation in the social value space. There's all sorts of stuff that we can do to support communities where we're working that isn't just creating jobs. whether it's use of technology, you know, you could as a you know, as a outsourcing business that's owning opening a contact centre in a piece of geography, you could provide Wi-Fi, you know, an umbrella of Wi-Fi that covers a whole town for free. but get no points for that now. So, I mean, arguably, these businesses should be doing outreach and this kind of stuff as good community citizens anyway. So the fact that they're not getting points for it in a tender is a different thing. I think what's often misunderstood by companies, because they don't really look at it this way, is that
Gemma Waring 38:43 Definitely.
Jeremy Brim 39:19 what the end client values. So you're using charities to do your signage for your construction site. There are charities that do that sort of stuff, for instance, or that they come and do your waste sorting and things like that because they take some of the waste away and get money for it. It's probably cheaper than the commercial provider anyway. And so, you know, we should be, as part of our solutions, we should be thinking about innovation, particularly social value and sustainability, carbon reduction. Because again, it's like the whole green agenda bit. Like I say to my mate, Mike Reader, who's an MP all the time, stop calling it net zero, call it energy resilience, or something else. Invoke the Russian fear of them turning off the gas taps, you know, so that we run out of gas or whatever. Because all the net zero stuff pays for itself anyway. It's all just common sense. What are we arguing about? It's mad.
Gemma Waring 40:01 Yeah, I know. And I think that the sort of, for me, one of the issues with it as well is that it doesn't lend itself to all sectors, you know, sort of it can be a real struggle. I do quite a chunk of work in the IT sector in terms of the clients I support on the bidding side. And still, in the latter part of 2026, they're delivering a software solution being asked just how many jobs they're going to create in the local area. You know, and it's like, we're not, we're implementing our software. And I've tried to encourage people, just a tip as well for anybody in the same position, to think laterally about that. You know, think about the fact that we work online, you can still offer work experience remotely, you could offer jobs remotely, you could do coaching, CVs. mock interviews, you know, there is still stuff that you can do in that sphere, but it's, you know, activity goes where you, where a spotlight's being shone on it. You know, I've learned that from my early days being in sales. If you say I'm monitoring your call stats, people will make the right number of calls, but then you don't have the quality of that's coming through, you know, and for people to sort of say, we are, you know, monitoring these particular things, everybody's focus is going to go over there. And like you said, that, you know, and it does make a difference. There was a building project in my little village and part of that was that there was going to be a certain amount of money that the contractor would provide to revamp the park. Now I've lived here since my children were born. And it's the first time the park's had a revamp in 13 years. And guess what? I went past last weekend and it was full again. You know, with families playing and kids and, you know, being out and stuff. And that kind of part of social value seems to be being classed as less important than the job site. And I understand that, you know, we've got that kind of the statistics over, you know, neat, you know, people not entering the workforce after education and things like that. I do totally understand that, but I just think pigeonholing social value as job creation is, and I feel so bad for all the, I know a lot of the people that have worked so hard on getting the social value model to where it was. And to see it just kind of, it's almost like someone's just read pens 80% of it is just absolutely heartbreaking. I think it sends out the wrong message.
Jeremy Brim 42:28 I mean, for stuff for over 5 billion in central government, right? So the local government can still do what they like, as long as it's more than 10%, as long as it's 10% or more of the score. And so it's the classic thing I always come back to really, is as part of your capture and solution development during capture, so way before bidding, Go and talk to the clients and influence them to put stuff in that will create more value for them and help you win it. Don't be a mercenary and go and influence them to put stuff into a tender that means you're definitely going to win the exclusion of others and it doesn't create any value for end clients or communities. You've got to provide a load of value and you're just asking for a share of that value in return. So ethically, I'm an ethical capture person, you know, ******* of a capture person. So, you know, who smashes people to bits winning deals or getting them direct awarded or award without competition these days. But yeah, so I guess it's up to the suppliers to try and influence those clients to still shape a model that delivers for their communities where their people work or not or whatever. And we should just all be good citizens, shouldn't we? So we've only got 2 minutes left, Gemma. We've gone wildly, so wildly off script.
Gemma Waring 43:46 I know.
Jeremy Brim 43:57 There's a whole bunch of stuff we were meant to be talking about, but actually it's been really valuable, really useful. So it's always great to hang out. We should probably have another check-in in three months time or something on what we felt. We probably should actually in January, February once the Burnham's new stuff's kicked in. So yeah, let's keep talking. So where do people find you, Gemma? Just find you on, what's your business called again?
Gemma Waring 44:05 Yeah, so I'm Gee Waring Consulting, so if you Google me, I shall come up. But I will warn people my website is just a website that sits there because I thought I best get a website to look professional. I don't actually, I haven't, it's in my long term pipe dream when I ever get time to it, you know, it's like working in the business, not on the business. I still haven't quite got that balance right. So it's there, but predominantly I engage with people most on LinkedIn. So just look me up, Gemma Waring, obviously I'm connected to you on there as well. So people will know I'm the right one. And just drop me a message or an inbox if you would like to have a chat about anything or, you know, I know we sort of, I think the good thing between you and I is we're aligned, but we're like different sector specialities and neither of us are sort of too territorial, are we, about sort of sharing information and advice and...
Jeremy Brim 45:11 No, no. Yeah, so we compete in certain things, but in reality, you're my go-to person for training people in new procurement act related stuff, and we've introduced you to some people and things, so people are welcome to pick up on that. Yeah, it's a big world, there's lots of work and things, and you know, it's nice to have friends to talk to about this stuff, otherwise you'd go mad, wouldn't you?
Gemma Waring 45:23 Definitely.
Jeremy Brim 45:37 So yeah, so well, thank you very much for coming on again. It's as usual, been a real education and really useful to understand. And like I say, let's have a cheque in probably January, February time once some of that new PPN or the social value stuff starts to bite and we'll see what the crack is and go from there.
Gemma Waring 45:40 Yeah. Brilliant. Thanks, Jeremy. It was lovely to speak to you again.
Jeremy Brim 45:57 Thank you.