The Red Review - The New Procurement Act Update webinar with Gemma Waring
In this episode, Jeremy is joined by procurement expert Gemma Waring. This follow-up session updated you on the latest news about the new Procurement Act, including the central digital platform and NPPS.
Download Gemma’s presentation deck here
Want to learn how to prepare for the biggest change to UK Public Procurement in a generation?
Visit our Procurement Act page to find out more
Transcript
[00:00.9]
Welcome to the Red Review with me, Jeremy Brim. The Red Review is brought to you by Growth Ignition, the transformation and capability development business, all in the work winning space and the bid toolkit, its product set in bid process and training videos. Welcome everybody to this lunchtime, lunch and learn I guess on or update on the New Procurement Act.
[00:24.8]
So I'm Jeremy Brim, I lead Growth Ignition. We are a transformation consulting and capability development business, all in the work winning space. So we help clients develop their processes, performance environments and measures, across business planning, marketing, but particularly key account management, capture and bidding.
[00:47.1]
And then we can train all of the people in those aspects and develop online tools for them, learning videos, et cetera, et cetera. So we do that for many of the large building contractors, building consultancies, but outsourcers, IT firms do a lot in nuclear and defence and all sorts of things, have a great time doing it.
[01:07.2]
And whilst doing that for the last six years, obviously this New Procurement act malarkey, as a result of Brexit has put its head above the parapet and I crossed paths with my friend Gemma here. I thought to myself, do I go and try and learn all about this stuff, am I possibly with life and business going to be able to keep up to speed with it?
[01:31.2]
And the answer is no. And so I thought I'd make friends with somebody, a grown up who actually knows what they're talking about. So welcome Gemma again, thank you for coming. Would you mind just telling us a little bit about yourself, whilst we're just waiting for people to log in and things and then we will get underway?
[01:49.0]
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for that. It's it's not often I, I'm the, the appropriate adult in the room, usually looking for myself. But yeah, so my name is Gemma Waring. I've worked in the public sector procurement and tendering space for 16 years now.
[02:06.7]
And in that time I've gone from doing just bidder side to also doing procurement side as well. So I've got quite a unique perspective of seeing both sides of the table. I'm still actively involved in managing, carrying out procurements, still actively involved in preparing for writing and then dissecting results in bids for companies.
[02:28.1]
So I probably augment the other sectors that you didn't mention, Jeremy. So I do a lot of stuff around services, health care, education, skills, employability, things like that tend to be my focus areas when I'm writing Bids. But yeah, I've been all over the Procurement act since it started its journey as a white paper a good number of years ago now, coming up to three years ago, and have been actively involved for the last, I'd say 18 months now in doing roadshow events and training and talks initially with public sector buyers and suppliers.
[03:01.6]
And now, now I'm actively supporting people to prepare for changes, so working with procurement teams on updating documents, changing standard operating procedures, reviewing their workflows and the team structures and things like that to make them, ready to go for the act.
[03:17.7]
Going live next February. So I'm here to give you an update on what's happened since we last had one of these little, catch ups. And there's some good news, there's some unknown still and there's, there's not a lot of bad news, I don't think, but more gaps still than I would probably have hoped there to be at this point in, in the year.
[03:36.1]
Yeah, well, we, we shall see. I forgot to do the housekeeping bit. Gemma. So, yeah, we'll do that. We have Q A and the chat open. I've got both of those open. Gemma's the show, really. So I'll keep, track of the Q A and, chat.
[03:51.8]
I can see Christine had got her hand up. Would you mind Christine, asking the question via chat or the Q A? And then we will pick that up for you as we go. But do, do feel free to ask questions in the Q A. We'll pick them up towards the end. Oh, it says the chat's disabled, so you just have to use the Q A apparently.
[04:09.7]
Apologies, I never get it right. Either the Q A doesn't work or the chat doesn't work. Sorry about that. But you use the Q A and we'll, we'll hoover those up at the end. Unless I see one that's really pertinent and then I might interrupt, but hopefully. Yeah, go for it. So, yeah, Jim, if you, if you want to share your screen and get into the show, that'd be great.
[04:28.2]
Than. Thank you very much. Okay, brilliant. Thank you for that. And as Jeremy said, please do use that Q and A log as we go along and it's good in the Q and A log as well because anything we don't get to, answer today, if we were close to time, we can sort of download the questions and answer them all.
[04:43.3]
I'm not sure whether the initial question, it usually is when I'm delivering online training is will we Get a copy of the slides. That's usually the first question I get the answer to that was probably yes, but probably not in PDF format to not make it easy for anybody to use them in your own team briefings. You'll probably just get them in a PDF after the event, because there's a couple of links and stuff in there that I've put together for people to use for resource material.
[05:07.1]
So it'd be good if you, if you got them. But it will probably be PDF. So first slide we've already done. So, we've already done our little introduction so you don't need to know any more about us. I'm going to go through this. Last time we did this there was so much to say that I was like really?
[05:22.8]
I think we got really close to time and we didn't have a lot of time for questions at the end. So I'm going to be quite conscious of keeping an eye on the time this time and keeping us on, on track. So, it's been six months actually since we did our last one of these webinars and at that point in time we were moving towards a transition date of 28 October, for the act going live.
[05:46.3]
Now the vast majority of you online will probably be aware, although not everybody is. I've learned this week doing training and stuff still with other people, that it's not now planning to go live until the 24th of February of next year. The reason given for that was that there an ancillary supporting bit of guidance and document and policy called National Procurement Policy Statement that needed to be redrafted Which I'll talk about a little bit later on.
[06:15.3]
But in reality I think a lot of people are maybe thinking it's more to do with the fact that the central digital platform, isn't quite where it needs to be from a developmental point of view. And although I can't comment on that because I don't work on any of the teams, I believe that myself to be the case because I think that they are still having issues there around the interconnectedness between all of the esenders like Delta Proactive, Intend and this new central digital platform.
[06:44.3]
And I will give you a little bit of an update on that later on as well. So we're heading towards the 24th of February now. One of the big props of the Procurement act has been the additional documents, guidance and support, that Crown Commercial Service have put out, and it's far reaching.
[07:05.2]
We've never had it before. However, I think that most people I speak to are telling me that they feel like it's got to a point of white noise. It's information overload. There's new stuff getting released here, there and everywhere. You either catch some of it or you don't. You've got, you know, a lot of people will see a bit of guidance, print it off or bookmark it or leave a tab open and want to get around to reading it, but you never get to.
[07:27.5]
Same with emails. You get in your inbox and think, oh, I'd like to look at that. And then you never actually have time to do it. So there was this plan to roll out this huge amount of guidance and documentation, although primarily focused on the buyer community, so very, very little promised or expected for us suppliers.
[07:46.8]
I'm talking about my supplier hat on today. So they have released a lot more guidance and I've got links on, the next slide for you to pick up where you can find, this information. It's about 90% there. There's a couple of sheets still missing from the pack, but the bulk of them have been prod like the new competitive flexible procedure.
[08:07.4]
There's a fact sheet on that. The new approach to frameworks, dynamic markets, selection stage, pre market engagement. All of the major ones are done so that guidance is out there. They also promise templates, which again is a new strut and support for procurement teams.
[08:24.6]
So things like they're changing assessment summaries, to oh, sorry, no, they're not changing. They're changing standstill letters to assessment summaries. I've spent the last year trying to get my brain to remember which I'm talking about. And now it's like procurement actors won the fight. So now I tend to talk about the Procurement act as if it's live now, which will stand me in good step next year.
[08:44.1]
But I have to keep correcting myself. So they've got an assessment summary template. There's going to be a new process in place as well around conflicts of interests, where buyers have to state and record at, the beginning and throughout the procurement process whether there's conflicts, arising and what mitigating actions they've taken.
[09:03.9]
There are more templates to come though, specifically ones around things like there's supposed to be whole pack of templates and information to help buyers enact that new competitive flexible procedure. So that's coming along but not quite there. Then we've got the Central Digital Platform.
[09:21.3]
So this was the big one that everybody was waiting for. So this is, if you're not familiar with it, the Central Digital Platform is going to be a build up in coding terms from the Finder Tender service. So it will still be called Find a Tender, it's called Central Digital Platform and all of the documentation and guidance, just in case it changes name in the future, they don't have to go and reprint everything.
[09:46.5]
So Central Digital Platform is like its generic name. It was supposed to be released in time for everybody to register on it and for it to be transactionable with all the new notices by 28th October and obviously that hasn't happened. And just this week on Monday there was a further release of information about it, which I did a LinkedIn post about.
[10:06.3]
But I will go over the content of that today as well. And that's really critical because this platform is essential to everything working and everything being able to go live. It's central to compliance, for buyers. So we need to make sure that it is ready to go.
[10:25.1]
And I know that from sort of back office EastEnders are a long way away. Not a long way away, A long way down the road I should say into. In terms of creating those new notices and mix and putting them together, I think it's the crossover point.
[10:42.3]
And then they get so far down then someone will challenge and say, well that notice should have that in and that only gives you those options and that option's missing and then it all has to be redone and everyone's got to recode it. So it's been a much more complex process than I think that they ever anticipated.
[10:59.7]
And you know, people are already starting to ask questions about whether 24 February will get pushed back even further due to this, given that we're just about to enter crazy season and you know, not for us bidders, we, in terms of like we're working usually but you know, it's holiday period, then we get back, it's January.
[11:21.4]
It just seems like timelines are getting a little bit tight. So I'm sort of watching this space. Then we had the National Procurement Policy Statement which I will talk about what I think might happen to it going forward. But that National Procurement Policy Statement was initially issued, however when there was the change in government and the Labour Party took power, they decided to pull that National Procurement Policy Statement and they want to reissue it, with more of a Labour Policy driven focus.
[11:56.5]
So we'll look at that a little bit later on. So a couple of areas, you can see we're nearing completion there, but a couple of them still seem a bit of a way off. And there's no timeframes, again, when we have no exact date for when the platform will be ready. We've got no exact date when that procurement policy statement will be reissued.
[12:14.7]
So we see a little bit of flux. And the problem with that is, you know, public sector suppliers, tend to just, we're very flexible, very pragmatic. We'll just deal with whatever is presented to us. So, you know, it's the buyers that make in the big changes to their templates and processes and all that.
[12:32.4]
At the moment, we'll just wait and see what tenders we get after the 24th of February and react to them. But it's very hard for them to change when, they don't feel like they've got the full picture. You know, a lot of them kind of know what they're supposed to do, but then they're thinking, well, I can't go and design a competitive flexible procedure because I want to wait and see this template pack that's due out.
[12:52.2]
And, you know, we want to register on the platform, but we can't do that yet because we don't know what it looks like and we don't know who needs to be involved in that in terms of the team and the resource and who's going to have access. Right. So it's all just still in a little bit of a, of a no man's land at the moment in terms of making it all work.
[13:10.4]
So I've got the link here to those guidance documents. If you click on that page, it will give you access to every single one of the documents that are available, which, as I said, there's only two or three that aren't currently available. There is a, fact sheet on the central digital platform, so a specific webpage, the one that was released on the 25th, of November, just this week.
[13:31.8]
So you can click on that and have a look at that and you can also sign up, to a newsletter for that particular page. So in the future, if things change as it goes live, as we're allowed to access it as suppliers, you should receive notification on that page. And just out of interest as well, we've got the Sourcing Playbook.
[13:50.2]
So for people that aren't aware of this, this is the go to how to guide for the vast majority, of public sector spend in service and product Categories construction has a slightly different, approach, as it often does, because it's just different in the way it's procured.
[14:06.8]
But they are currently reviewing and rewri bits of this to make sure it's fully compliant. But it's just an interesting resource to kind of keep an eye on because again, when that gets updated, that will give the buyers their updated how to guide on enacting the Procurement Act.
[14:23.6]
So as suppliers, it can get you sort of that bit further in terms of your understanding of what the buyers are after. So I hope that's okay for everybody. I will keep going. I'm used to doing training where I stop and pause and discuss, so I'll just keep going through.
[14:43.3]
I wanted to look at open frameworks to start with. So, I think we mentioned in the last update that we did that the changes that are coming in in regards to frameworks is that there's going to be two different framework options going forward for buyers to choose from. Our framework managers, whoever's running the framework, they have a choice to do a closed framework or an open framework.
[15:05.4]
So a closed framework is exactly what we have now. They run a tendering competition to establish the framework. It run for four years, it has established call off mechanisms, established lots, number of suppliers, etc. It's exactly what we have now. The difference with the open framework option, if a buyer or framework manager chooses to use it, is that they are then allowed to run that framework for up to eight years.
[15:30.8]
But what they have to do is within that eight year period, there's at least two trigger points where they have to, refresh that framework, they have to open it back up to competition. And this is one of the areas with the Procurement act where the devil sort of was. It was in the detail and it was kind of, how does that work?
[15:49.3]
What does that look like? Then how do you reopen it to competition and, you know, how do we still follow the ethos and the requirements of, you know, procurement legislation and make that happen? So there's been a little bit more clarity given on that. And it's interesting because I've spoken with a number of framework management companies, individual buyers that manage frameworks and when they actually look at how they'd have to manage this open framework, in my experience, 100% of them have just said, I can't understand why anybody would choose to do that.
[16:21.0]
So it's a bit of an area where there's been an idea formed, but when you actually take it all the way through to fruition. It doesn't quite make sense in practise, in my opinion. So we'll see what people think of it. So it's still established initially via a competitive tendering process. So under the new regs they can do the open or competitive flexible procedure to establish it.
[16:41.6]
You will also get your call off mechanisms, established there can be broken down into lots, etc. It's got those that eight years, but opening it, a couple of years, a couple of times, sorry, during those eight years and then the first sort of trigger here in terms of like, why would I do this?
[17:00.7]
So the whole purpose of having this eight year framework is where you've got common goods and services, where largely you reprocure the framework every four years and you get the same lots with the same suppliers on supplying the same thing. And it's to try and remove unnecessary necessary procurement.
[17:16.9]
However, when a buyer chooses to refresh that framework, they then have to run a tender notice and republish it and run a tendering exercise for any new applicants. And they have to follow the awarding procedure, that they have to follow anyway to establish the tender, the framework in the first place.
[17:39.8]
So it's very difficult to then sort of understand where the benefit lies because I've got eight years and instead of doing one competition four years it expires, do another one, another four years. Over an eight year period it's saying that it can open up another two.
[17:56.0]
So it's three lots of tendering and procurement rather than two over an eight year period. Those two open points as well are only minimums. So they can opt to do more. So they could say we're going to refresh it every year or every two years or whatever it is when they establish the framework initially.
[18:12.9]
So it's very difficult to understand logically why a, buyer would choose to do that. It all depends on how you refresh. So what does that refresh look like? Because you've got the publication requirement there. But how do we get people on and off the framework?
[18:28.1]
So what they've given is two scenarios. So you've got an example where you've got a framework and whether it's broken down into lots, it doesn't really matter. But say you've got a framework and there's no limit on the number of suppliers, so that's really simple and easy.
[18:44.0]
So you do your initial tender, you award those suppliers a place on the framework. When it comes to your first refresh point, you re tender for it and the people who are existing on it can either say, just roll me over onto the next version of the framework, if that's one of the allowable options.
[19:00.7]
So you've just got an automatic carryover. They can opt to, say, review my previous bid and rescore it. Don't know why you would do that. But there you, then the final one is that you can actually redo your tender and recompete with all of the new people who are trying to get on the framework.
[19:23.3]
And obviously in this example, with there being no cutoff point, it would obviously be everyone that meets whatever standard it is that's been set would then get a place on the framework. So that's, you know, in that instance, what the buyer's hoping is that everybody that's already on it will say, yeah, just roll me over onto the next one.
[19:43.3]
And then anybody just have to, you know, maybe there's a couple of new bids that they have to evaluate to see whether those people get on. However, if this was three years, or say, say, at that secondary point in the framework, say it's sort of year six or year seven, you may well want to redo your bid.
[19:59.7]
You might want to, you know, depending on what pricing you've put in or depending on what the questions have been asked or what you've updated in your business, or what you've changed in your solution or your business approach, you might want to redo your tender. And I actually did a webinar with 30 different companies on and I did a poll and said, in this instance, would you ever just roll over or just say, take my past tender?
[20:21.9]
And, I think it was 93% of people on the webinar said, absolutely not. I would always rebid and update my offer and update what information I've put in. So I think it's maybe a bit naive on, behalf of whoever's thought this idea up. That a lot of bidders would just go, yeah, it's fine, just take my old bid.
[20:39.1]
I, I don't really care about writing a new one. The complication with the open frameworks comes then. Not that that's not complicated already. I'm just going to try and open a curtain. I shut them over because I got winter sun come in and it was blinding me and now it's gone and I look like I'm sat in the dark.
[20:56.3]
The complication comes when you do limit the number of suppliers. So it's a framework that's initially established, and say there's a Maximum number of three, three suppliers on each lot. When the supplier then goes, when the buyer then goes to refresh the framework, if all three providers want to stay on, where do we go then?
[21:16.8]
So what has to happen then? Well, the guidance that's been given is that there's only the bottom two options. So if you're one of those existing three suppliers, you can either roll the dice and say, just use my last tender score, so use my initial tender and just take the scores from that and then they will review any and evaluate any of the new bids coming in, or you can re tender.
[21:42.1]
And again, you know, if it's a, if it's a, if it's a limited number of participants, there's new people putting in brand new bids. I don't know a lot of bid teams that would just not bother to update or refresh or redo their tender in that instance. Because in that instance, obviously there's significant, room there for you to potentially lose your place on the framework.
[22:02.7]
And this is the example that's being given. So you can see here, basically within the initial version of the framework, I'll just call this on because I'm going to talk through. But you'll get this as an example. First iteration of the framework, you can see there's supplier A, B and C all won the places on it.
[22:20.7]
Great. When it goes to do its refresh point, there's two new suppliers entered the bidding pool, suppliers D and E. Now in this example, supplier A said, you know what, we're 85%, we're well ahead of everybody else, just take our pass score.
[22:36.1]
They didn't bother redoing their bids, so they've kept their place. Suppliers B and C decided to refresh their bids to re tender and as you can see, their supplier B increased their score a bit. Supplier C decreased their score a bit. That then means that supplier D, in this example, leapfrogs over supplier C and gets that third spot on the framework.
[23:01.0]
So that's how they think it will work in practise. And there are benefits to it because it keeps the framework fresh, it allows new people in. I just don't think that would be useful, I guess, if it was like a 10 year or a 15 year framework, something like that.
[23:17.1]
But for this to have to happen twice within eight years, effectively you're going to end up as a procurement person running three procurements in eight years instead of two. Now, as I said, the vast majority of people in practise have said to Me, there's absolutely no way I'd bother doing this. We're just going to run close closed frameworks.
[23:32.8]
But then I also know that Crown Commercial Service, I know who have had a bit of a battering this week over other framework issues, have said that they are going to go for this version of frameworks for their ones that are due up just after the act goes live.
[23:49.0]
They've actually delayed the procurement of a framework to get it out under the Procurement act so they can run it as an open framework. And I think that a lot of the public sector are looking to what they do and you'll see that being replicated across other authorities. So maybe keep an eye on those if you want to see how this works out.
[24:06.8]
But it just seems like a bit of a nonsense in practise to be honest. But again my, that's my, my personal opinion. And it's been echoed by a few colleagues as well. So that's open frameworks. So Jeremy, go on. Just a quick question Lorna had asked.
[24:22.0]
This sounds very much like a dps, question mark. But it, it sort of does and sort of doesn't, doesn't it? Because it's in effect it's rolling. But yeah, DPS is different because the clients have to send every tender to everyone and there's no direct award opportunities.
[24:41.5]
They're a bit of a different beast, dpss, aren't they, to this? Yeah. And, and they're phasing out DPSs. So DPSs that are currently in play have to cease to exist by the 23rd of February 2029. So they've got a, four year old lifespan after the act goes live and they're going to be replaced by dynamic markets which are essentially DPS is where you just do the initial selection stage, you're on there and you know it's a competitive tender then to sort of win business from, from that dynamic market once it's established.
[25:14.9]
So this is still a framework because it's still the full shebang. You know, it's still selection and award to establish it. It's just these entry points and I can see what they've tried to do. They've tried to sort of say, well let's try and make it a bit more, let's not try keep procuring but trying to you basically getting three lots of procurement in an eight year period rather than a four year period.
[25:35.6]
So a lot of people are saying what's, what's the point in it. So I'm keen to see what. What way Crown Commercial go with it and if it makes sense I might know a little bit actually Gemma, because I was in Parliament yesterday. I know I saw that easing thing. So the mood music was.
[25:52.8]
So you, you might have noticed that. That Crown Commercial Services have released management consulting for which I've gone path a bit about because they've done a whole host of stuff that they didn't warn anyone about. Well, they didn't tell him it was coming, it was three months late and then didn't tell anyone it was out.
[26:09.6]
And there's a whole, you know, they've, they've suddenly asked for evidence within your 2000 per component and things. But the main, one of the big commercial issues with it is that it's come out as a two year framework, not a four year framework work. And it's because the government haven't fully settled on what they want from these things.
[26:30.2]
And so I suspect towards these open frameworks is because as the new industrial strategy and the spending review comes around in the spring that might change the direction of travel on some things. So I think that's interesting. It's about CCS and generally government being needing to be more fleet of foot as they try and deal.
[26:51.1]
The extreme lack of money knocking about and still mass. Yeah. So I think it's something to do with that. Definitely. It's it's. It's still fresh isn't it? The the changeover of government and you know, do you forget that sometimes?
[27:06.9]
But it's. Yeah, we just, just want to keep an eye on, see whether they work in practise, see if they take off. But I have a feeling that they might not, not take off that well. But you can hold me to that later. There's been additional information put out since we talked last in regards to remedies.
[27:26.2]
So remedies being challenge for people that aren't familiar with the kind of the wording of it. This basically means what your right is as a supplier, if the procurement has been unfair or you don't feel like it's been carried out correctly according to the rules and regulations. We'll still have to go to the High Court.
[27:45.1]
But what I find interesting is that in terms of what the High Court can hear challenges on, there are a few areas that it specifically says they're not allowed to investigate any claims against. First one being if a buyer is considered barriers to SMEs second one is if the buyer has had regard to that National Procurement Policy statement so they're being told they've got to do it but then actually if you don't do it there's no real challenge over that.
[28:12.9]
And that is the social value and sustainability piece. And also for below threshold contracts, the rules around those can't be challenged in a High court either. So I just find this a little bit disappointing because basically everything there is just compounding issues for smaller suppliers in my opinion.
[28:31.9]
You know, it's sort of curtailing the ability to actually challenge anything when you're being treated unfairly. We're going to look at the procurement Review unit in a minute. It maybe they'll mop up the excess there or the issues there, that can't be raised. But it just seems like a bit, it makes everything a little bit toothless.
[28:50.4]
You know, everything's oh, SMEs. Remove barriers for SMEs. Consider SMEs. But then, oh, by the way, if you don't do that then there's no real problem with it because no one's going to say anything. They've said that the automatic suspension of a contract or the award of a contract I should say can only be applied during the eight working day standstill period.
[29:09.7]
So that's important to know. So if you want to stop a contract being entered into, you must do it during that eight day working period. You can still raise a challenge after that, but once you've sort of got past that period, the sort of, you know, damages and awards that you'll get in your favour are definitely lessened.
[29:29.8]
After that eight day period you've got 30 days to raise your challenge from when you knew or ought to have known about the breach. So it's tightened up and given, given very specific time frames in regards to raising challenge, remedies. So the remedies being sort of, you know, the measures that the High Court can put in place if they uphold a challenge.
[29:49.2]
So if they find in your favour, if it's pre contract, so if it's before that contract details notice has been published, the new dual stage of the award procedure they can set aside so that's that, that you know, sort of invalidate, invalidating the decision, and sort of usually making the procurement start again, they can mandate corrective actions.
[30:13.0]
So where you know, potentially maybe if you've complained that there's a conflict of interest on the evaluation panel, they could, you know, stop the Award of contract and advise the authority that they've got to re evaluate the tenders with that person not on the panel or something like that.
[30:29.2]
You've got being awarded damages so you can still be awarded damages pre contractual and then there's any other appropriate orders that the court seems. So that's kind of where it can go in the future if you raise a challenge pre contractually, post contractually, obviously things get a little bit more difficult because what the High Court has to balance then is what's in the best public interest in terms of monetary.
[30:56.1]
So obviously if you've stopped something before it started then it's much easier to manage if a contract's already been started. Even if there's found to be a valid challenge against that decision, the court has to weigh up the cost of removing that service, paying damages to one person, setting it up again.
[31:14.7]
They have to calculate that and decide the best way to go. They are still allowed to set aside the contract so they can nullify the contract in that phase. They can again award damages and they can also modify the contract terms. So for example, as it says there, they can say it's not in public interest or it's not practical to terminate that contract.
[31:36.9]
But instead of it being a four year contract, you can have 12 months and in that 12 months the team has to re procure for the remaining three years or something like that. So that's where we're going to in the future. Now I mentioned the Procurement Review Unit there. Apologies, the graphic is a bit fuzzy here.
[31:53.1]
I actually stole it from a Crown Commercial Services webinar. Did a little cheeky screen grab. But for those of you that don't know, there will be this enhanced version of the Mystery Shopper Service that will be available under the Procurement Act.
[32:08.5]
And it has these three strands within its remit. So the first two there are related to monitoring buyer activity which would be very interesting to see how, how much teeth that has and how much action it actually takes. I know the Mystery Shopper Service does you know, very similar job and recommends corrective actions.
[32:27.8]
But the Compliance Review Service is basically a proactive service. So the one in the middle, the Public Procurement Review Service is the Mystery Shopper Service. You as a supplier or any other stakeholder can go and raise an issue, a complaint for them to go and investigate, related to how a procurement's being carried out.
[32:46.3]
So very similar. The Compliance Review Service is actually going to be proactively auditing, Buying organisations and contracting, authorities to, to make sure that they are working in line with the requirements and the ethos of the Procurement Act.
[33:01.8]
So things like, are you doing pre market engagement? Why aren't you producing pre market engagement notices? You haven't published your annual KPIs against that particular contract and they have the power to put in place quality improvement plans with contracting authorities.
[33:19.6]
And if they so choose, they can make those public. So for particular authority. Authority. And I'm sure those of you on the call will know every time I do this in an open training session, they'll say, oh, like such and such that always do this or they always do that. The idea is that this, this unit will then put an improvement plan in place for that authority and they have to meet the terms of it and they can actually publish it and make it public as well.
[33:42.4]
Be very interesting to see if they go to those lengths. And which authority is the first one who has its, school report published with its, its bad behaviour noted down on. I'm sure nobody wants to, to, to have that accolade. The final one is the debarment Review service.
[33:57.8]
So some of you might have heard about the debarment process. So this is going to be a publicly available list of any supplier that ticks the wrong box on the mandatory and discretionary exclusions in the selection questionnaire. This procurement Review unit will basically see any.
[34:20.8]
The process is that the buyer sees it either through you've ticked the wrong box on the form or say, for example, poor performance on a contract. They then have to notify the review unit about that because that will be something you have to tick in the future. The review unit will then investigate that and, it's quite a lengthy process.
[34:40.0]
You know, it's not a case if you tick the wrong box on a form once and someone pushes a button and you go on this public list of bad suppliers, they basically do an investigation. You're allowed to make representations for yourself. You can challenge it, you can appeal it, give you a standstill period when they notify you going to go on it.
[34:57.9]
If you challenge it during that period, it withholds you going on it till they've investigated the challenge. So it's a bit of a lengthy process. And again, I've heard mixed reviews from people about how effective, they think this will or won't be. We'll have to wait and see in practise.
[35:14.1]
We'll have to see what happens. I don't know what that list is going to look like? They haven't said, you know, they say there's going to be a public list of suppliers. I don't know whether that's going to be a page on the central digital platform. I don't know if you're going to have your profile tagged in some way.
[35:33.5]
I've got no idea. Nobody knows yet what this is actually going to look like. So that is the procurement review unit, so you might want to keep an eye on that one as well, because that would be your first port of call. And I think the purpose of it is to try and remove the amount of things that go to court challenges and the costs associated with this.
[35:53.8]
So this also potentially is a bit of an arbitration service, between disgruntled suppliers and the buyer community. Now we get onto the central digital platform. So I've obviously already sort of teed this up by talking about what it is.
[36:09.3]
So this is the place, the find a tender service where every buyer will in the future have a profile, with users underneath them. Every supplier will also have a profile, and, notices will be tagged and coded definitely against the buyers, but I don't know whether it'll be tagged and coded against the suppliers at the moment.
[36:28.8]
I think that was the original intention, but they seem to be having problems with the, API. On was originally obviously supposed to be ready by the TW for the 28th of October. That didn't happen. We were then told that it would be ready and you could see it by the end of this month.
[36:45.9]
And we sort of like, oh, we'll hedge our bets and do 29th of November then. But obviously it hasn't turned up yet. So we're still waiting on it. But they did release that additional information, which I've given you the link to, in one of the earlier slides. So what do we know about it?
[37:02.5]
What have they actually confirmed about it? Firstly, buyers will be able to register on it from late January. Now, considering every buyer has to be registered on it correctly by the 24th of February in order to do any, any business, so they can't publish any notices, like contract notices, award notices, anything.
[37:22.6]
If they've not got a registration on this platform, they're not going to even be allowed to log in and try to get on it till late January. Which I think for most people, the initial alarm bells there, you know, you've got the whole of the public sector needing to register on it.
[37:40.1]
What if there's issues with it what if they need to redo stuff on it? It doesn't seem like an awful lot of time time to me, to get that on. Compounding that for us mere suppliers. Exact quote from the, the guidance. There is no hurry to get suppliers registered.
[37:57.0]
Apparently there's no, there's no hurry because in, in their mind, the people that are creating this, they're saying, well, if the first, say the first tender notice, contract notices are going to be called tender notices going forward. If the first tender notice notice isn't published until the 24th of February or the 25th of February, and that's like a month or six weeks, then the first suppliers that we need to allocate work to, because you have to be registered on it.
[38:26.7]
So you cannot be awarded a public sector contract after 24 February unless you're registered as a supplier on this system. And they're just thinking, well, the suppliers that are interested in that one have got six weeks to log on. I don't think they've got any comprehension that as soon as it goes live, the vast majority of responsible suppliers are going to want to go and log on and register on it and get a profile sorted on it.
[38:50.4]
But it just seems to be this very, blase approach to just like, yeah, suppliers can just sign up as they go. You know, when they've got a tender they want to apply for or when they want to look for a tender, or they can just, you know, they can just apply as they go. It's not a big deal. Thing is hugely naive and I think it's going to.
[39:07.0]
Cause it'll be like trying to get Oasis tickets all over again. We'll all just be sat there with computers crashing and things loading for, for decades. I just hoping we get to the end of something without it cashing us out or losing our place in the queue or whatever it is within that platform. What you're going to be required to do is to have a profile.
[39:25.3]
So your, your company will have its own profile on there. You will have to complete what they're calling your supplier information and I'll give you the list of what that, is on the next slide, in a second. And, this is the bit for me where the madness. I feel like I've sort of, you know, Alice In Wonderland at this point.
[39:43.5]
So the current understanding and the current way it's due to work is that you will, as a supplier, your journey is going to be find a notice on. Find a tender service. Click on that notice that Notice will still say go out to Delta Proactis.
[40:00.1]
Wherever you log in there, you download your tender documents, you review them, decide to bid on the opportunity. Then when you need to upload your bid you have to go back into the central digital platform and generate a unique code.
[40:18.0]
Give that code to whichever esender you're using and that will then let them read it, let it pull your supplier information across from that system, the new central digital platform, into the procurement platform you're using where you, you're actually uploading your tender documents.
[40:38.9]
I thought that this would be an ask once thing so like once I've put given that code to Delta or wherever it just has my information stored. Apparently that's not the case. Apparently you have to generate a unique code for every single procurement which seems like a madness to me.
[40:55.3]
Also this new system doesn't check or verify any information so you type it in. The system doesn't have any verification process so we just assume it's correct and then it's still up to the individual buyers to check that information.
[41:13.1]
It also doesn't allow obviously the project specific questions. So what you might then have to do is upload that sq but then the E procurement system will then have additional selection stage questions then your ITT and your pricing submission as well. So for something that's supposed to be making everything easier and an ask once thing for me it's, I think you can tell by my tone how I feel about it.
[41:37.4]
I just think it's again something that it hasn't been thought through correctly from a user point of view and certainly not from suppliers. You know, for buyers they register on it once. They will use a platform like Delta or Proactors or whatever to create their notices in. They ping them in, it'll link automatically for them.
[41:53.8]
It's a lot easier even if you've already logged in. To find a tender. If you've got a login you have to re register. I'd like to know what that process looks like and I'm sure there'll be bugs and issues around using the same emails and things like that. But they have promised that there will be more guidance and videos due to come to help us navigate this new workflow that we're going to have to work with in tenders and I think you know that's just a major faff.
[42:24.2]
Mature bidding teams will get used to that faff and will learn and we'll adapt and sort of go with it. I just think when you think about smaller businesses, ones with limited resources, maybe a third sector organisations, people, new saying, I'll give this public sector malarkey a go.
[42:41.4]
I think this is just one of those things that might just be a step too far for people and it just is like a level of ridiculous process that I just don't think people will have a lot of patience for. So the information that you'll be asked for, so you'll go on, you'll create a company profile and I believe you can have users within that profile so more than one person can access the account but again haven't seen inside of it yet.
[43:08.0]
Your basic information. So the part one of the standard selection questionnaire, you know your company name and all that sort of stuff, stuff they will ask you for copies of your accounts from the most recent financial years and again it will be your responsibility to keep updating them annually.
[43:24.5]
I don't think there'll be anything automated to remind you, you've got to put in your connected person. So this will have quite a big impact because they're going to tighten up on this in the SQ stage around the connected persons and what they've been involved in and what they haven't done. So they want a lot more visibility over the that and then you will also have your mandatory and discretionary exclusions in there as well.
[43:47.8]
So that also should link probably to that debarment list, wherever that exists in the metaverse in the future. So that's what they're going to ask you for. So you can see there's nothing in there, you'll still need to be asked about, you know, things like your references, your insurances, all that sort of stuff.
[44:03.1]
So you'll have this, it'll go over but then anything sort of after the what you see in the current standard selection questionnaire, everything you see after the exclusions, they're going to have to ask that all in the portal anyway and you're still going to have to type out that bit of it.
[44:19.4]
We'd had a quick question. Does the supplier code have an expiry time frame? I believe so. I think that I think that's why it's like a once code. I don't know what that is but that's why you have to keep giving it over and over again so for different ones.
[44:38.1]
So I think that it has a limited and I've also been been told again this was like the initial development earlier on this year whether they've got to this point or not that they, you could have multiple versions of your supplier information. You know, for example, if you were, you know, have different companies or sometimes you're your parent company and sometimes you're the UK entity or whatever, apparently you can have sort of different versions of.
[44:58.3]
It was the original intention. I know that they did demo it at an event, a local government event last week, but I couldn't go to it because I was I was delivering training for, for a change. But I sort of asked Lindsay Maguire directly and said when is this going to be available for anybody to actually look at in the general public?
[45:20.9]
And she said, oh, we're working on our videos and stuff at the moment. We'll have something available soon. So. Okay, soon. Hopefully this side of Christmas, but I'm guessing not. Yeah, I'm, I'm just conscious of time. Gemma, we're getting. Because we've got a bit, we've got a few questions to get through as well.
[45:36.5]
So. Yeah, yeah, I'll just do this National Procurement Policy Statement as the last bit and then we're ready for questions. Awesome. So I've already mentioned the reissue of the, the National Procurement Policy Statement. They did do a very short stakeholder survey which closed earlier this month to try and garner opinions.
[45:54.7]
Although it wasn't widely publicised. It should be reissued. Sorry J. It was out over half term as well, wasn't it? Yeah, so maybe a lot of people missed it. Should be issued this side of Christmas but again we don't know.
[46:10.2]
And it should be updated in line with Labour Party policy and just a quick, quick couple of headlines. So what I believe this to sort of mean, based on what they've said pre and post, election, expect it to contain some kind of ring fencing favouritism of UK based businesses.
[46:27.0]
But that causes a huge headache with compliance with our trade agreements like the GPA and the Trade Trans, Pacific Partnership. So we'll have to see what happens with that. Fair payment terms for supply chain. They've been in the news even talking about private sector revealing supply chain payments, recognition of trade unions and fair working terms.
[46:46.7]
So flexible working terms, etc. Might play a part in that policy statement. They've mentioned a national procurement plan but nobody knows what that means. Whether they're talking about re nationalising the railways and national energy, I'm not sure. But also there's a real focus on growth in, in future job sectors.
[47:05.5]
So looking at where the projected growth is and targeting activity towards Them and also tackling, unemployment, poor mental health, as well in terms of barriers to people being able to enter, the labour market. So that's kind of the end of my bit.
[47:23.9]
Cool, thank you very much. Just on the, national procurement plan bit. So, as I say, I was in Parliament yesterday to meet Mike Reader, just to check he was all right, really, my mate who's become an mp. But, in order to do that I had to sign up for some engineering conference thing that was being held in now on the terrace, which was enthralling, obviously.
[47:45.5]
But there was a talk by a guy called John Loveday, who's one of the directors at the ipa, the big projects, sort of government hub that are overseeing all of the big nuclear projects, HS2 prisons and all of that, that stuff. And he mentioned there's kind of a waterfall effect.
[48:03.4]
So you've got, a lot of people thought when the budget happened we would suddenly know lots of things about, you know, funding and what was going to happen into the future. In reality there's very little detail really in the budget, so it doesn't really tell you what's going to happen with national hospital programme and things like that.
[48:21.6]
But the reason why is there's going to be a spending review in the spring which will be connected and will come at the same time as a national indus industrial strategy at the top and below that, in effect, you'll have the national procurement plan aligned with it and, okay, the pipeline of big national construction projects and the investments government going to make, green investments, etc.
[48:46.5]
Etc. So there should be this pyramid effect or waterfall effect down from the industrial strategy to determine, you know, what they're going to invest in, including investing, you know, the national wealth fund and pensions money and all sorts of stuff.
[49:01.6]
So that's quite exciting. Sounds quite clever. Or to be honest with you, bloody common sense, isn't it, really? Yeah, actually joining things up in a line instead of doing the mad hot, randomly nice type of plan, wouldn't it, what the country is meant to be doing. So, yeah, that's all up for grabs then.
[49:17.0]
So, we best, tackle, all of the questions we've had. The quintessential classics. Will they be sent a copy of the slides? Yes, we can do that, Gemma, if you don't mind sending me a PDF direct afterwards, an email will go out, to all of you and everyone in our database tomorrow morning with a copy of a link to the recording and a copy of the, the Deck or a link to the deck.
[49:41.4]
So we'll, we'll do that tomorrow morning. So thank you for that. So, so let's go backwards through the content. So, Ann Lee, if a tender evaluation is extended, it could expire.
[49:56.5]
Oh, brilliant. So that's more of an exclamation of frustration rather than a question. I'd meant to filter out a few of those. Guessing that conflict of interest will be asked separately per tender. Yes, that's right, yeah.
[50:12.4]
So they're supposed to have an individual, conflict of interest and there's a specific form and there's specific three categories of conflicts. They've got to assess for each tender pretender and they've got to highlight where the conflicts are and what they're going to do about it in the process to mitigate, those Cool.
[50:33.0]
Anna's also asked the, the, the disbarment list, the naughty list, will that start off black and then people. Then it will build or is it going to start pre populated with people who are already on the naughty step? No, I, I believe everything is forward.
[50:49.8]
So like that they, they've said that obviously the, the purpose of doing all the new notices and stuff as well as, and this was to. To gain more strategic data on spend. That's why they've been quite tight over making sure everything at least gets a contract details notice so they've got a better picture of spend.
[51:05.5]
And I was told that it's building from zero. So it's a new database. So they said it will take at least 18 months to two years to be able to draw any meaningful strategic data out of it. So yeah, be blank. And again, who wouldn't? Who gets the crown for being the first person on it? Interesting to watch.
[51:23.5]
I could, I could think of some candidates. My friend Michelle B. Has asked, so you can't go on it by accident, essentially. Was what we. The platform is this. No. The list of naughty steps. No, you can't.
[51:39.6]
No, it's, it's, it's not. So it's not like an automated process process. Although the fact that you have to do your selection stage information or your supplier information should say in the platform is those exclusions. It would make sense to me logically that if you tick the wrong box it fires you into a list or fires you into that debarment process with the Procurement Review Unit.
[52:02.9]
But yeah, as far as I know, no, it's not automatic. There's a process. Cool. Okie doke. So Michelle's happy about that. Did, Kate, K, sorry, has asked did CCS reveal which framework is being held back until post 24th of Feb to be issued as an open framework?
[52:24.4]
So. I know. Do you know what? I did know what it was. It's not in my head at the moment. K, I'll have a look at that one. I've got it because I was discussing it with people at the time that it happened, so I'll have it somewhere. But I don't have it with me at the moment. It's not. Warren is saying It's Tech Services 4.
[52:41.5]
She thinks it's RB6295, which is catchy. I think it's well done, team. We've devised it between us. RSO. Oh, Anne's asking what is ts4dos7 question mark.
[53:00.4]
Just, just frame the. I think that's just the reference to the framework work. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Cool. So let's get through all of that. Oh, we've done that one. My mate Paul Collins was asking, when an open framework reopens, does it have to be on the exact same set of requirements, contracts, policies, etc as the original procurement?
[53:26.9]
If not, can they, be changed? It really diminishes any benefit to the buyer, surely in reprocuring the thing? Yeah. So, no, they're not allowed to change it. Basically, it has to stay largely on the same terms.
[53:44.0]
Unless there was a new requirement. You know, I'd say they've updated the standard selection questionnaire in the in between, or there's a new mandatory requirement, they can add those in, but it largely has to stay the same. Fascinating. Of course it does.
[54:02.3]
When suppliers ask for a rescore review, would this involve resubmission update of the submission or only the docs that are previously submitted? So do you get another bite of the cherry? I guess.
[54:19.4]
Is that in relation to when you get rescored on the framework? I'm guessing, yeah. So do. Can you read that one again?
[54:31.2]
No, I can't find it. I. I've, gone and I think it was just around the rescoring, basically. No, I think that you have to choose a path and you're on that path then. So like I saw one there asking as well about whether, say, if you do choose to redo your tender and you come out with a lower score, can you say, oh, you know, forget that, just use the old one?
[54:49.5]
No, I think you've got to pick a path and stick to it. And if you're re tendering you would have to re. Tender a lot along with all of those other organisations. So it would be like a full retender. But. And that's why. That's the sort of madness within the system of like, why on earth would a buying authority want to do that every couple of years?
[55:05.3]
I don't know. It must be if things are changing. Oh, Warren had seen an opportunity only three months ago, looking for a supplier to partner on the central digital platform, which suggests it's nowhere near. And I.
[55:21.0]
What you're saying, Gemma, about their appalling behaviours towards us as suppliers, you know, I'll leave that to the last minute. They'll figure it out. You're right. That's going to really inhibit SMEs. Or to be honest with you, Gemma, I find, the maturity of companies with anything below a thousand people is fairly immature.
[55:42.8]
And so I think there's going to be some bumps. Somebody anonymous had asked, how is pricing being regarded with regard to existing framework suppliers to new entrants three years on?
[55:57.9]
So I guess is that this, that open framework bit? Because the incumbents may be a lot cheaper. I guess they've got embodied knowledge, haven't they? Yeah, it is. Again, it's one of those things that we just don't know till we see in practise what this is actually going to look like. Because again, but equally a new supplier might have already seen the existing pricing and then be able to, able to underprice.
[56:19.8]
So I just. It commercially, I don't really understand how it's going to work either. It's one of the many, many what if scenarios with that, those open frameworks that the more you look at different strands of it, the more you think this just doesn't bloody make sense at all. I'm sure it won't all come at a crushing point in February.
[56:39.1]
Well, I guess that's. Do you think it will get pushed, back again, Gemma, or do you think I have my very. I'm starting to build strong suspicions that it will, yes. I think that. And I'm wondering what excuse they're going to pull out the bag because last time they said it was because of that National Procurement Policy statement, which didn't make any sense because the whole purpose of it was that it was a standalone, thing.
[57:02.0]
I feel like unless they have a lot of magic elves that like working overtime over Christmas, then I think that we might see a further delay But I might be wrong, but I'm starting to hear, more and more whispers that we might see it start to, get delayed again.
[57:21.3]
Yeah, interesting. And what do clients think about this? Local authorities, health authorities, central government? What are the vibes you're getting from procurement friends? They feel overwhelmed and exasperated and like I said, it's almost like white noise, too much information.
[57:41.4]
You know, that they're sort of being fed things, drip fed things. They've done the training. They don't feel like the training is. It's just basically made them learn the facts again. It hasn't helped them know what to change in practise. A lot of them are saying, well, we get halfway to doing something and then we realise we can't do that because we still don't know this.
[57:58.4]
And they want to communicate and, and fix and change things and be ready. But a lot of them are saying, like, either they're looking for as many ways as possible to keep doing business as usual within in the regs, or they're just sort of saying that they're finding it very difficult to, to move forward meaningfully with it.
[58:17.9]
It's really challenging. Is it? I thought. I think similar to not wanting to be the first supplier on the naughty list, no client wants to be the first client to end up in court and lose when they get in. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That's the big thing. So I remember I did a podcast with Rebecca Reese from Trowers and Hamlin, sort of the top lawyer in the country.
[58:37.4]
Country procurement lawyer in the country. Ages, ago now. And her top piece of advice is that, you know, clients are generally pretty terrified of this, and we need to get our head around it. As you are coming on this webinar, to be able to coach them on how to find their way through it.
[58:55.4]
It's kind of capture of your key opportunities. If you've got something that's coming around to rebid after this act comes out, it's a good idea to get ahead of it with the client and coach them on what works and what doesn't work and how to navigate through this. But you need this kind of expertise, to be able to do that.
[59:13.9]
Which brings us beautifully to our, our final minute, I guess. So, thank you very much, Gemma. Thank you. Thanks everyone for your questions. No, thank you for the question. So we've not quite made it through all of them, but I think we've done okay. And so, if you would like to get into the detail of this and the specifics for your business, Gemma, is available, to engage.
[59:37.6]
We've just got a client reached out to us today, actually, who wants a webinar for all of their key, leaders on the Procurement act, specific to their business and sector, that Gemma and I are going to facilitate. So do reach out to us. You know, you'll get an email tomorrow with a bit of a link to reach out to us on it, but do reach out to us if you think there's a need in your business to brief your people and leaders, client facing people, people, etc, because you do need to be experts in this stuff, actually, which is difficult as it keeps moving.
[60:09.1]
And we'll build a bit of a community around it, maybe. Let's see if it gets kicked into the long grass again. We'll probably have to do another one of these in six months time. Gemma, it's always a pleasure. Do reach out and, have a great weekend everybody.
[60:24.9]
We'll see you next time. Thanks very much, Gemma. Thank you. Thank you everybody. See you next time.
