Funder: Office of the Deputy Prime Minister

Project aims

The research aims to evaluate the success of:

• Local authority approaches to procurement
• Government aims and objectives for procurement

Research design

Research methods will include interviews, case studies and the collection of data through surveys of senior officers in local authorities in England. These will be carried out every autumn from 2004 to 2008. The surveys will focus on the processes and outcomes of procurement in local government. Data collected will be used to assess what works, why and how. It will also be used to determine the impact of procurement policies on local services. The project will also use information from the rest of the UK, Europe, North America, Japan and Australasia.

Research Briefing Guide

Findings

There has been some progress since 2000. More authorities demonstrate good procurement practices. Local authority commitment to good procurement practice seems strong, embracing e-procurement and responding to the long-term national policy agenda on equalities and sustainability. More recently local authorities have started to respond to the requirements of the Code of Practice on staff transfers and the requirements to make efficiency gains through procurement.

As a result of changes in procurement practice, local authorities are developing a ‘mixed economy’ of supply that includes self-supply, other local authorities and public sector suppliers, the private sector, and the voluntary and community sector.

However, there are differences between local authorities’ levels of performance. These differences could be due to factors such as:

• Local authorities adopting an alternative strategy: always pursuing the lowest cost, always keeping services in-house or always outsourcing
• Local authority management cultures that prevent procurement managers and specialists from persuading the senior management team and elected executive that good procurement practice will deliver performance against the authority’s corporate objectives
• Ignorance of the principles of good procurement practice

There have been some notable difficulties:

• Member procurement champions have expressed concern about their roles and their relationships with officers
• Local authorities have been less successful in making links between other policy objectives and procurement
• Performance measurement is a problem in the area of procurement
• District Councils perform less well on indicators of good procurement practice than do other types of local authority

Outputs

Baseline Survey Report 2004 Summary (published by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, subject to Crown copyright)

Baseline Survey Report 2004