Tendering For Care

It has been said that the current requirements regarding the tendering process are a government requirement which will change in time, therefore organisations do not need to plan to ensure that they stand a good chance of success in the procurement process. Nothing could be further from the truth – a matter which was underlined in a speech made by Sir Peter Gershon on 13th November 2006. It is "efficiency savings" which are diving the whole procurement agenda. The full text of the speech is available on the members' section of the website. However these are some of the key points regarding procurement now and in the future:

• annually the public sector spends £11 billion on social care and £13 billion on social housing;
• through smart procurement bringing expertise to areas of inefficiency in the past, for example the procurement of social care;
• of the savings across the public sector, in excess of £6 billion should come from procurement in 2007/08;
• there are significant savings to be made through simplification of processes in the back office, through standardisation of processes, through sharing back office services between different public sector bodies and through outsourcing;
• some government departmental real settlements per annum from 2008 are minus 5% this compares with minus 2.5% per annum in the current spending review period
• there are very very substantial gains to be made in the whole area of public procurement;
• although there have been some very well publicised successes in the use of electronic auctions, the fact remains that across the public sector the use of electronic auctions is extremely limited;
• future efficiency gains are to continue to separate the commissioning and the provision of front line services;
• to enable contestability between existing providers and other potential providers;
• to increase scope to increase partnering with both the private and not-for-profit sectors;
• to create a better framework on which there can be long-term contracting between the public sector and the voluntary and community sector.

So the message is to learn about procurement systems and procedures – this is not going to go away anytime soon.