Aims & Objectives

of the 2018 nationwide assessment of the National Procurement Strategy

About the National Procurement Strategy

The 2018 strategy is not about compliance or tactical issues, its streamlined structure reflects learning from the 2014 strategy and the 2017 diagnostic exercise, focusing on three key themes which, consultation has shown, reflects local government’s priorities for the next four years:

showing leadership
behaving commercially
achieving community benefits

The themes are underpinned by four ‘enablers’:

developing talent
exploiting digital technology
enabling innovation
embedding change

The strategy can be found at https://www.local.gov.uk/national-procurement-strategy

About the 2018 nationwide assessment

This assessment is specifically designed to enable the LGA, and regional bodies to:



Gather a body of knowledge

Surface, gather and publish examples of best practice and related guidance



Target resource deployment

Establish where and how to best focus resource and expertise

w

Act as a relationship broker

Identify and introduce organisations that would mutually benefit from sharing expertise

This assessment is designed to allow every English local authority plus some from Wales and NI to self-assess their current operational status against the themes set out in the new 2018 National Procurement Strategy (NPS) launched at the LGA conference in July 2018. It will also provide the LGA, as the sponsor of the NPS, insight on progress made by the sector and help to identify areas where potential support is needed.

The LGA is the owner of the NPS 2018 and as well as representing the sector is also responsible for improvement issues. The completed diagnostic will service four purposes:

to allow the LGA to obtain a snapshot of where the sector is in relation to the NPS 2018
to allow regions and clusters of councils to support each other for mutual gain and improvement
to help individual councils gauge where they currently are in responding to NPS 2018 and identify their own priorities for improvement
to help to identify key areas where they can better focus support

For individual councils, the assessment is intended to help you to:

p

Gain awareness

Understand and adopt an agenda and shared language based on the Things That Matter and What Good Looks Like for each

f

Assess your present state

Investigate and assess how the organisation as a whole is currently performing – a launch pad for future aspirations



Identify gaps to address

Contemplate and express possible desired future states for your organisation using comments that can form the basis of an action plan

One consolidated response per organisation

As the representative of your organisation, you can capture a record of its present state in a form that’s easy to access and communicate.

Guidance: How to access and download your response report

This enables national (and regional) dashboard reports to identify areas of best practice that can be shared more widely.

Additional options are available

… for those organisations keen to take the next step or to engage more stakeholders.

next steps