aoc procurement newsletter spring 2011

14
Procurement Newsletter Spring 2011 Contents Introduction .............................................................................................................................................. 2 About us / About the AoC FE Procurement Efficiency Team ................................................... 3 New Spend Analysis ............................................................................................................................... 4 Benchmarking and How AoC can Help........................................................................................... 5 Case Studies .............................................................................................................................................. 7 A Day in the Life of a Buyer ........................................................................................................... 7 Informal College collaboration swaps ideas to save time and money ......................... 7 Filton tests going green to generate new revenue ............................................................. 8 West Notts slash computer costs by using consortia – again and again! .................... 8 Shared Services Update ........................................................................................................................ 9 Announcements ...................................................................................................................................... 10 Procurement Regulation - What’s New? ................................................................................... 10 New FE Library of Procurement (FELP) launching this summer...................................... 11 College’s annual return on EU contracts awarded during 2010 ...................................... 11 Filton’s procurement courses judged excellent for fourth year in a row...................... 12 Contracts Finder ...................................................................................................................................... 12 Take our online survey to win chocolates ...................................................................................... 13

Upload: association-of-colleges

Post on 13-Jan-2015

632 views

Category:

Education


4 download

DESCRIPTION

 

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: AoC procurement newsletter spring 2011

1

Procurement NewsletterSpring 2011

Contents Introduction .............................................................................................................................................. 2 About us / About the AoC FE Procurement Efficiency Team ................................................... 3 New Spend Analysis ............................................................................................................................... 4 Benchmarking and How AoC can Help ........................................................................................... 5 Case Studies .............................................................................................................................................. 7

• A Day in the Life of a Buyer ........................................................................................................... 7• Informal College collaboration swaps ideas to save time and money ......................... 7• Filton tests going green to generate new revenue ............................................................. 8• West Notts slash computer costs by using consortia – again and again! .................... 8

Shared Services Update ........................................................................................................................ 9

Announcements ...................................................................................................................................... 10

• Procurement Regulation - What’s New? ................................................................................... 10• New FE Library of Procurement (FELP) launching this summer ...................................... 11• College’s annual return on EU contracts awarded during 2010 ...................................... 11• Filton’s procurement courses judged excellent for fourth year in a row ...................... 12

Contracts Finder ...................................................................................................................................... 12

Take our online survey to win chocolates ...................................................................................... 13

Page 2: AoC procurement newsletter spring 2011

2

Introduction

Welcome to the Spring 2011 edition of the AoC FE Procurement Efficiency Team Newsletter. Read on for news about innovative procurement projects from across the sector, advice from colleagues on how to get buy-in for cost-saving measures in your College, tips on easy-to-implement ways to cut costs and updates on consortia deals. In the first half of 2011, your College like all others will have found its budget stretched. But you’re having to operate on less whilst still continuing to drive up standards. It’s a conundrum but it’s also one which Colleges, with their long histories of responding to the demands of the marketplace, are well able to absorb and grow within.

Tough as it is, we urge you to keep viewing the continuing period of austerity as a ‘challenge’ rather than as a ‘problem’. Better procurement processes, as you know, can make a major difference to the impact of Spending Review cuts. You and your College may well be already in the middle of long-term procurement projects, which will bring significant savings. But don’t forget about the ‘quick wins’ too – there are often some relatively simple ways to make minor savings that take little time to introduce.

You can find examples of both short- and long-term cost-saving ideas here. We’re here to help inspire you and offer support to College procurement teams, so you make the very best of the budget you have.

Contact us

We’re here to help! Whether you’ve got a procurement problem or a success story you’d like to share, email us at [email protected] or call our helpdesk number on 0808 178 1669.

And let us know via [email protected] what you think of this newsletter – what would you like to see more of? Do you have a story you’d like us to feature in the next issue?

For previous issues and details about the AoC FE Procurement Efficiency Team, see www.aoc.co.uk/en/aoc-procurement-team/

Stop press: we’ve set up a simple online survey so you can let us know what you think of our work in the Procurement team – complete it and you could win a box of chocs. See the end of this newsletter for details.

Page 3: AoC procurement newsletter spring 2011

3

As a team of procurement professionals, we work hard to identify procurement efficiency initiatives and to help implement them in FE Colleges. We work alongside other professional services within each College, such as the college’s finance, IT, HR and estates departments.

The team was set up in 2005 as part of the former Learning and Skills Council (LSC) to develop procurement knowledge and expertise specifically for the FE sector. We became a part of the AoC in April 2010. We’re based throughout England and are able to support Colleges across the country.

Tony Watmough, AoC Regional Director for the North West region states;“Efficient procurement and the development of shared services has become an increasingly important area for Colleges to explore in the current financial climate. The AoC Procurement Team offers invaluable advice and support to Colleges in this field, helping to develop best practice. I would urge all Colleges to take advantage of the services they provide.” Regardless of who is responsible for procurement at your College, how long it’s been established and how well it’s embedded into College activities, our role is to help make your life easier.

About us/About the AoC FE Procurement Efficiency Team

Some of the things we can do for you or support you with are:

• Visit your College to do a procurement review

• Offer detailed advice about procurement issues – from general to specific queries

• Give hands-on support with tendering and contracting

• Support and co-ordinate collaborative projects

• Provide training and guidance

• Disseminate the latest procurement policies

• Send out market updates.

Most of these services are free to member Colleges or offered at discounted rates. You’ll find out about other things we do as you read this newsletter.

We’re very friendly so get in touch by emailing us at [email protected] or by calling our advice/helpline on 0808 178 1669.

Page 4: AoC procurement newsletter spring 2011

4

AoC embraces cloud-based spend analytics to deliver value for money to Colleges

Cloud analytics involves elements of the data analytics process being provided through a public or private ‘cloud’. Cloud in this context means not a fluffy white collection of water droplets up in the sky, but an invisible, remote hosting platform that holds complex information securely.

To support the spend analysis work they are carrying out for the AoC, Exor Management Services has picked Rosslyn Analytics, a leader in cloud-based spend data management solutions, to help Colleges track and analyse spending.

Benefits

Using Rosslyn’s platform (called RA.pid), Colleges will be able to consolidate and analyse their spend data quickly and efficiently. The company predicts in fact that you will halve the time you spend “obtaining, enriching and analysing data”. This includes identifying cost savings and meeting EU and UK regulatory compliance requirements.

Through RA.pid, Colleges will have 24-hour access to their cleansed and enriched spend data at line item detail. This means that you will be able to see what you have spent item by item – what you bought from whom, when and how much it cost. About RA.Pid

A secure web portal, this enables users to create executive dashboards, drill-down analytical reports and alerts based on a range of data-driven dimensions including:

• spend by transaction,

• spend by supplier,

• spend by category using Thompson, ProClass and UNSPSC classifications, and

• spend by parent.

Cost

Organisations usually pay for cloud analytics applications and services by subscription or through pay-per-use. The cost for an FE College, following negotiations by AoC with Exor, is £2,097.50 plus VAT for the complete package. This includes analysis, the online tool, a report and an individual visit. Colleges may be able to secure a reduced cost by working together and approaching Exor as a group or collaboration.

To sign up and get started please email either Carl Johnson at AoC via [email protected] or Andy Johnson at Exor, who can be reached at [email protected]

More information

Email us at [email protected] or call the helpdesk on 0808 178 1669 if you want to know more about spend analysis in general or about the electronic RA.pid spend analysis platform before you make a decision.

Exor Management Services website can be found at www.exorgroup.co.uk/analytics

New Spend Analysis

“ We are excited to be given the

opportunity to work with AoC to introduce

powerful, yet easy-to-use spend data

management technologies to procurement

professionals. ” Charles Clark, CEO of Rosslyn Analytics

Page 5: AoC procurement newsletter spring 2011

5

Benchmarking and How AoC can Help

Did you know that the AoC FE Procurement Efficiency Team provides a national purchasing benchmarking service? Learn more about the value of benchmarking and how we can do some of it for you, saving you time and money.

So what exactly is benchmarking?Benchmarks are actually things you might find when out on a weekend ramble. Surveyors cut arrow-shaped marks into rocks to indicate points they have measured, so they can work out the elevation of other points nearby. These days the word is more commonly used to describe a point of reference, but the idea of a ‘mark’ is a useful one to keep in mind. We test and check how things compare to a particular benchmark or industry standard.

Benchmarking helps you do things better and more cheaplyIn business, benchmarking means comparing business processes and performance to industry best standards or to best practices from other industries by measuring quality, time or cost. This results in a ‘performance metric’ (i.e. a measure of an organisation’s activities and performance), which can be compared against others.

Benchmarking’s ultimate aim is to find out how to do things better, faster or more cheaply. Performance is measured using a specific indicator: in procurement, we use a ‘unit cost of procurement’. It enables organisations to plan how they can improve aspects of their processes or adapt others’ best practices to enhance an aspect of their own performance.

It can be something your team does as a one-off but it’s better if you’re continuously benchmarking.

Why we set up the AoC’s national purchasing benchmarking serviceWe set up the service to test College and consortia pricing to find out how consortia contracts compare to Colleges negotiating on their own.

Some Colleges are still putting tenders out direct to suppliers whereas others are using consortia almost exclusively. On the ground, it’s a mixed pattern – but some Colleges are missing out on better deals. We wanted to help more Colleges get the best value for more products and services.

The service aims to benchmark Colleges’ unit costs of procurement against price structures from CPC and Buying Solutions, so that we can:

• Highlight alternative, better value for money consortia contracts to Colleges.

• Let consortia know which contracts don’t offer best value for money so they can improve these.

• Find out how local suppliers are performing.

How the service can help youIf you’re unsure whether you’re getting best value for a particular product or service, we’ll do a benchmarking exercise for you so you can get on with your job while we work out the results. It takes us on average two weeks to get back to you, though occasionally it’s a little longer if a new pricing structure is being introduced.

We give you feedback directly and confidentially, so you can make the right decision for your College. AoC carries out the exercise anonymously, which means that we never tell the consortia which College has requested the benchmarking. We won’t use your information publicly, just aggregate the cost savings for a particular product or service.

Benchmarking exercises we’ve carried out so far show the following cost savings made to individual Colleges by using CPC or Buying Solutions:

Page 6: AoC procurement newsletter spring 2011

6

Product or service Cost saving identified by AoC’s national bench-marking service through using a consortium

Computer consumables – virgin ink and toner cartridges 18.6%

Mobile solutions 37.5%

Sanitary disposal equipment and related services 21.1%

Stationery 30.4%

Telecom networks 14.2%

Supply of hair consumables, equipment and supplies 19.3%

Vehicle hire 2.8%

Virgin and recycled photocopier paper 2.5%

How to request a benchmarking exerciseSimply email us at [email protected] and we’ll give you a timeframe for completing the exercise. Or go to www.felp.ac.uk entering ‘national benchmarking exercise’ into the search field, complete a template and email that to us instead. There are 21 commodity areas with templates already created so you can simply input your data – or get your existing supplier to complete it. If we need more information, we’ll be in touch.

How much does it cost?Our benchmarking service is currently free to AoC member Colleges.

Page 7: AoC procurement newsletter spring 2011

7

Paul Rumble currently works as Procurement Officer at City of Bath College and as Procurement Manager at New College Swindon, while also juggling a further contract with Swindon College.

How do you manage so many jobs at once? I work three days a week at New College and two at the City of Bath and I’m also doing some work for Swindon College. I work on fixed-term contracts. The requirements for the Colleges are all slightly different and I’m working on different projects, so it does get tricky to differentiate; you just have to be organised. Basically, they’re all the same role, just with different titles.

How long have you worked in procurement? It’s been 25 years man and boy! I started off in the Post Office’s supply centre where their purchasing function was, and moved into the College sector around eight years ago. We’d moved back to Swindon from Cornwall, I was looking for a procurement position and a full-time contract at Swindon College became available.

In what ways is the College sector different? There are lots of things you need to understand that are completely unique. You make a lot of contacts in this sector. For instance, I’m in close contact with Roger Coles: we talk about what’s going on in the marketplace and what’s coming up. A lot of it is...For full article visit our website

Case Studies

A Day in the Life of a Buyer...

Informal College collaboration swaps ideas to save time and money.

The M4 Collaboration Group, so-named because all the Colleges involved – Wiltshire, Filton, Swindon, City of Bath and New College Swindon – are based around the M4 motorway, was set up to share expertise as much as money. It’s an innovative idea based on networking, building excellent long-term relationships and local sharing, and that works successfully alongside more formal groups. And it’s led to some impressive savings. Member Paul Rumble explains:

“It’s an ad hoc collaboration that was never intended to be formalised; we felt we could react more quickly to the individual and collective needs of the Colleges that way. It originated because I knew the Purchasing personnel at both Swindon and Wiltshire Colleges and we were used to throwing ideas about. It grew from that.

“We speak a lot or email and only meet up when we have a concrete proposal to work on. If one of us is thinking of doing something, we ask the others if they’re interested so there isn’t a fixed number of Colleges involved in each project. For each project, one College will take the lead, do a lot of the donkey work and then the others will hop on board. We take it in turns. For instance, we identified one college that had a very good price for paper supplies so we discussed that and decided we could aggregate usage for the four...For full article visit our website

Page 8: AoC procurement newsletter spring 2011

8

Filton tests going green to generate new revenue

Filton College is currently tendering through the EU for wind turbines and photo-voltaic (solar) panels. The College would like to install small-form wind turbines at their Wise Campus. This could create revenue through rental for the land. In addition, the wind turbine company could give Filton some of the energy generated for the campus or the College could sell it back to the grid. They also plan to install photo-voltaic panels on roofs at both Wise and Main Campus. The solar energy brings in revenue through roof rental and/or energy used in the buildings.

Filton’s Procurement Officer, Andrew Williams-Lock, explains: “We’ve been looking at ways we can reduce energy consumption and save money

across the College. We have a Green Team Committee that meets on sustainable issues and these projects came up from looking at energy saving initiatives. We also have a new renewable centre, which has recently opened within the College, so we felt it would be beneficial to have some of the technologies here that are being taught.

“We’ve gone through the competitive dialogue route for both projects. We initially advertised in OJEU for expressions of interest, which generated a lot of responses nationally. We then invited interested parties to come to view the sites and put a rough proposal together. From the proposals we wrote a specification in the best interests ...For full article visit our website

Since Angie Pilgrim, West Nottinghamshire College’s Procurement Manager, arrived at the college in 2004, the college has saved over £1m in computer hardware such as desktops, AppleMacs, laptops, printers and consumables. They’ve made year on year savings and continue to do so – last year alone, West Notts cut £61,000 (including VAT) off their bill. Angie explains how they keep doing it:

West Notts slash computer costs by using consortia – again and again!

“When I started here the college were buying expensive, non-branded computer products, the staff didn’t like them as they weren’t reliable and when they broke down, the item had to be shipped back to the supplier at the college’s expense, which took months to repair them. This was completely turned around at the first time...For full article visit our website

Page 9: AoC procurement newsletter spring 2011

9

Shared Services Update Government funded shared services projects involving over 200 Colleges now underway.

The Efficiency and Innovation Fund (EIF) is an initiative arising from £15 million allocated by Vince Cable, Secretary of State for Business Innovation and Skills, to the SFA in June 2010 to support the AoC and the FE sector in delivering “an innovative suite of shared service solutions”. A shared service is basically the shared provision by one or more organisations of a specific service or function – from waste management to exam administration, finance and HR.

EIF funding has since been released in two rounds to support 41 shared service projects involving over 200 Colleges. All these are now underway.

The aim of EIF is to help Colleges – at a time of austerity and cutbacks – to develop and test different collaborative models to:

• identify ways of improving service delivery of both back office functions and frontline services;

• determine where efficiency savings can be made; and

• find solutions to barriers and problems that collaborating groups can come up against.

Until recently, the FE sector lagged behind other public sector organisations in exploiting the benefits of shared service solutions.

The AoC Shared Services team is working with the Colleges involved to find out in detail about the projects and gather information. We plan to disseminate learning materials to the sector in the near future. This will cover:

• lessons learnt

• successes

• challenges and how to overcome them

• advice on how to approach collaboration and shared services.

We talked to managers working on a few of these diverse projects to find out how they’re getting on and what they see as the successes and challenges so far. For further details on this visit our website.

Page 10: AoC procurement newsletter spring 2011

10

Procurement Regulation - What’s New?

Credit checks no longer satisfy legal transparency tests, warn solicitors

Colleges, like all other organisations in the business of awarding contracts, can be heavily reliant on credit checks from one of numerous credit reference agencies to assess bidders’ financial strengths. The demand for these checks is intense, especially in the current economic climate. As we all know, awarding a contract to a firm that’s on the brink of ‘going under’ could have major legal as well as financial implications – not to mention embarrassment to the College and the cost of wasted time.

Now Mace & Jones, a firm of solicitors based in the North West (recently merged with Weightmans) who’ve been involved in long-running litigation related to the use of such agencies, warn that credit checks may no longer “satisfy the transparency test mandated by the Public Contract Regulations 2006 and subsequent case law”. And this might extend also to ‘part B’ services.

Mace & Jones say (in April 2011) that the law is now clear: “Bidders must know all criteria, sub-criteria and weightings used in assessing their bids so that they can prepare their best bid. No surprises are allowed when it comes to the marking regime. The use of a credit reference agency does not, in any way, alleviate the

stringency of this test.” In other words, Colleges must supply bidders with all this information upfront – clearly and transparently – and not hide the fact that they intend to run a check on the bidding firm.

If a College doesn’t give bidders full information on how bids will be assessed, then bidders have the right to challenge them legally. To prevent this, “the contracting authority must not only disclose the fact that it will conduct a credit check but it must also disclose what information will be assessed and how it will be assessed”. ‘How it will be assessed’ is the formula used to create the credit score.

But this causes a bit of a tricky problem: each formula is the intellectual property of an individual credit reference agency, which will be “very reluctant” to disclose it. And if the contracting organisation can’t disclose the formula, the assessment is at risk of a successful challenge by any bidders who are excluded as a result.

So how do you get round this? Mace & Jones believe that many finance departments will go back to running the standard accountant’s range of ratios and formulae themselves to determine bidders’ financial strengths. Either that, they say, or you have to “accept the increased risk of successful challenge”. You have been warned!

Announcements

Page 11: AoC procurement newsletter spring 2011

11

Advance notice to start preparing your College’s annual return on EU contracts awarded during 2010 All Colleges have a legal requirement to report the contracts they awarded during 2010 (that’s the 2010 calendar not financial year) to the EU. This is to comply with the European Community’s Directives on Public Procurement.

We’ll send round full details as soon as we receive them from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). This will include deadlines and where to send your reports.

But, to save time, you should start preparing your submissions now. Based on past years, you’re likely to be asked for the following information:

1. Nationality of supplier

2. Type of supply (supply, works or service)

3. CPV code (as listed in the OJEU notice)

4. Contract award type (i.e. open or restricted etc.)

5. Total contract value in pounds sterling

Please note: this requirement applies only to those contracts awarded by your College under the EU regulations; you won’t have to submit information on call-offs relating to consortia framework agreements.

Not had to do this before? Email us at [email protected] if you’re unsure what to do or if you need to know more about EU Procurement regulations.

New FE Library of Procurement (FELP) launching this sum-mer – www.felp.ac.uk

You may be aware that we at the AoC FE Procurement Efficiency team host the FELP website, a collection of practical procurement resources. We’re now redeveloping the site so it’s got a fresher design, is more user-friendly and better meets College business needs. Once we’ve finished transferring data and testing it, we’ll launch the new version this summer.

As well as the advice, good practice guidance and sample documentation on the existing site, the new version of FELP will provide:

• a better ‘journey’ through the site’s advice and guidance sections;

• the option to personalise the site, i.e. to create a ‘My FELP’ page, where you’ll find the latest news and be able to access documents you’ve recently used;

• more videos delivering training and guidance;

• ‘whole-Life’ costing models, which you can either use on-screen or download; and

• better opportunities to collaborate and get involved in shared services projects.

We’ll let you know when it’s ready!

Page 12: AoC procurement newsletter spring 2011

12

Following an audit by the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS), Filton College has been again been given a Centre of Excellence award. This confirms the College’s status as among the UK’s leading providers of procurement training.

Organisations have to be well-established providers to receive the CIPS award. They must also have excellent course management, a strong teaching team, above average exam results, excellent teaching facilities and happy students.

Course Leader for Procurement, John Bone OBE, comments: “College exam results continue to be above the national average thanks to the continued support of our motivated and

Filton’s procurement courses judged excellent for fourth year in a row

Contracts Finder

experienced team of lecturers, who have all had first-hand experience of supply chain management.”

Filton teaches the level 4 Foundation Diploma, the level 5 Advanced Diploma and the level 6 Graduate Diploma. Kelly Gillett, Director of Curriculum 19+ at the College, says that their courses no longer attract only those looking to build a career in procurement: “We’ve also seen a rise in students from smaller companies who are looking to save money through procurement”. She says it makes a real difference: “it really does give our provision great credit when completing against universities or for tenders”.

Business Link hosts Government’s new Contracts Finder portal

If you’ve been using the Government’s contract opportunity portal www.Supply2.gov.uk to advertise OJEU and non-OJEU tender requirements, please note that this website is no longer live.

You can access the Government’s new Contracts Finder portal (and replacement for Supply2.gov), on the Business Link website at http://www.contractsfinder.businesslink.gov.uk/

To register for an account as a Buyer, you need to go to: http://www.contractsfinder.businesslink.gov.uk:80/Buyer%20Overview.aspx?site=1000&lang=en As before, the new Contracts Finder portal gives you easy access to lower-value contract opportunities (typically worth under £100,000) offered by the public sector, and to find live opportunities to tender for.

Background

All Government bodies have a duty to make the way they spend public money transparent. They are more accountable than private organisations for their procurement and contracting activities.

All public spends above a certain threshold (£156,442 for Part A Good and Services) have to be advertised in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU). For public spends below this threshold or for Part B Goods and Services, public bodies are not required to advertise through OJEU but they still have to be open and ‘transparent’. Advertising your requirements through Contracts Finder will help your College fulfil this requirement.

To find out more about the need to show transparency, please see http://transparency.number10.gov.uk/

Page 13: AoC procurement newsletter spring 2011

13

We really value your feedback on the work of the AoC FE Procurement Efficiency Team. Are we meeting your needs? What else could we do to make your life easier? We’ve created an online survey that will take you at most 10 minutes to complete.

Take it now at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/QGSJDBH or by 30 June at the latest.

What do you think of what we do? Take our online survey to win chocolates

The first 10 people to finish the survey (including their name and contact details) wins a box of chocs! You’ve got until 30 June.

Want to feed back on this newsletter? Got a success story you’d like to shout about?Email us at [email protected] We welcome all your comments and ideas.

Page 14: AoC procurement newsletter spring 2011

14

Association of CollegesProcurement2-5 Stedham PlaceLondonWC1A 1HU

Procurement Team Helpdesk Number:0808 178 1669 Ray Poxon Senior FE Procurement Manager07917 266 082Carl JohnsonFE Procurement Manager07767 323 191Martin ToomeyFE Procurement Manager07818 533 393Beverly AboagyeFE Procurement Manager07584 528507 Roger ColesFE Procurement Manager07920 720651James DurcanFE Procurement Analyst & Customer Advisor 07917 426 077 Lesley Templeman Shared Services Project Manager, 07827 277 096Roanita Burke Shared Services Project Manager, 07584 528727Morag Henderson FE Procurement & Shared Services Administrator General enquires: [email protected] EMM queries: [email protected] procurement pages: www.aoc.co.ukFELP website: www.felp.ac.uk Shared Services enquries: [email protected]

Contact us