Providing interim capacity and a PCR 2015 compliant new route to market that delivered substantial cost savings and enhanced social value
A housing association based in the East Midlands asked eXceeding to assist it with its procurement of goods and works. The association was looking for an efficient way to contract compliantly with providers of works and related professional services. There was a need to meet set budgets in a volatile inflationary environment, and the association wanted to develop the local supply chain and deliver social value for residents in the local community.
The housing association also lost its Head of Procurement and was struggling to recruit a replacement.
eXceeding’s approach came at an ideal time, as the association was looking for ways to work more efficiently whilst contracting more effectively with local Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) as well as optimising its approach to delivering procurements for large development projects.
The association had access to services owned and funded by its local authority, as well as its procurement team to improve capacity, but in practice this didn’t deliver optimum outcomes and there was a desire for dedicated support that better aligned to its strategic goals.
The housing association needed support with a high volume of varied professional services and works procurements, ranging from low value contracts covering minor works through to multi-million-pound construction projects. To deliver this pipeline of procurements and contract for all these requirements effectively, a more efficient use of routes to market needed to be explored and a solution developed.
To compound matters, the organisation eventually lost its Head of Procurement and faced a significant resource gap with loss of capacity, leadership, and management of the more junior members of the team. Recruitment of a replacement took many months due to market conditions.
Our consultants introduced the housing association to an innovative new route to market that was compliant with Public Contract Regulations and allowed more efficient contracting by reducing reliance on tendering and shortening the timescales when procuring new contracts. Services and works contracts procured through this route to market consistently fell within budget, freeing up funds and offering the opportunity for reinvestment in social value projects within the local community.
Our commercial team developed and shared a proposal to provide a bridging service to continue the duties of the exiting Head of Procurement, which was accepted. This involved one of our Senior Consultants focusing almost exclusively on providing procurement leadership and management to the housing association over a nine-month period. Our consultant worked closely with the association’s Finance Director to provide executive oversight and leadership of the procurement function, and was responsible for overseeing the full programme of procurement projects. In addition, she managed more junior members of the procurement team, as well as helped screen and interview candidates for the Head of Procurement vacancy.
In eXceeding, the housing association established a trusted advisor and committed partner that is helping it to more efficiently procure professional services and works contracts compliantly and within budget. This, in turn, is enabling the association to meet the demands of key stakeholders, supporting its ambitions for increased SME and local presence in the supply chain, and the delivery of social value for local residents.
We also helped the housing association’s procurement team to ready itself and the wider organisation for upcoming new legislation relating to public sector procurement (The Procurement Act), the biggest change to public contract regulations in a generation.
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