Public Procurement and Property

2023 – A year in review with the Public Procurement Group

December 20, 2023 by Ray Knox No Comments | Category Procurement news, Public Procurement Group, vlog

As 2023 draws to a close, we take a look back at what has been achieved over the last year in Public Procurement in Scotland. We asked members of the Public Procurement Group (PPG) to summarise their sector’s 2023 achievements.

You can watch the video below, or read the transcript at the bottom of the page.

We’ll be back in the New Year with lots more interesting and informative content, make sure to subscribe to our blog and keep up to date!

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Video Transcript

Nick:

With 2023 very shortly drawing to a close, I’d like to take this opportunity to look back over what has been yet another interesting year for the procurement community across Scotland.

I’m also really pleased to be joined by my colleagues from the PPG Group who will be sharing highlights and achievements from across their own sectors.

It is incredible to look back over yet another year and see the great progress we’ve made in so many different areas. And I’m really proud to see procurement play a pivotal role in our drive towards a sustainable economy and delivering for the people of Scotland.

Now, there’s just not enough time for me to mention every highlight of 2023. However, there are a few things that I would definitely like to mention.

In April, it was pivotal, we launched the public procurement strategy for Scotland, setting out a roadmap for the next five years and giving us an ambitious future vision to put public procurement at the heart of a sustainable economy to maximise value for the people of Scotland.

It was developed with representation from across the sector, and the expectation is that all organisations will make this vision real in their own strategies. Then in February, we published a report showcasing the success of Scotland’s journey of achieving sustainable procurement outcomes over the past 20 years, driven by a strong passion and commitment across all sectors.

It confirms, I think, what we already knew, that Scotland has a long and effective history of supplier engagement and development and that our buyers are motivated by a real desire to support local economies and support the people of Scotland.

And then, innovation has always been at the heart of what we do. And I was delighted to see the National Innovation Strategy published back in June demonstrating how we will deliver product services and process innovation, which makes the most of our natural advantages and translates our research excellence into commercial opportunities across Scotland.

But that’s enough from me at the moment. Let’s hear from my colleagues across the PPG group, Julie, Angus and Gordon.

Julie:
So our councils are facing massive financial gaps in their budgets and I’m really proud that over the last year local council procurement teams are stepping up to help them with that. I’m also really proud that at Scotland Excel, we’ve put in place a national savings team.

We’ve identified four and a half million pounds of savings already with much more in the pipeline. But let’s not forget the important other things that public procurement professionals deliver, which is that social, economic and environmental benefit.

Our net zero strategy was published this year and we actually were recognised at the National Go Awards for our Energy Efficiency Contractors Framework. And I’m really, really proud of that as well. So lots of good work and lots to be thankful for.

Angus:
We’ve been working and rolling out our new web enabled Hunter environment, which is the key infrastructure environment where the planning and reporting around procurement in our sector is done, and that’s been extremely successful during the year.

So again, it’s been great to see everybody in institutions embracing that and our core team, facilitating and delivering that roll out after the development work that they’d done.

One of the biggest areas for celebration in 2023 is around people development of the procurement profession within Scotland.

We’ve had several events, which have all been very successful and been well received by the sector and the procurement community, and we feel that it’s really enhancing the value that procurement can bring to the institutions across Scotland that we support and who are our members.

Gordon:
Really I feel as though this year we have focused on our core services. I think the work the teams have been doing round about, the high inflation, managing our 1.5 billion portfolio and actually still trying to deliver savings on that, which been excellent. So a lot of hard work there.

Our logistics services have done a fantastic job with the largest logistic provider in the public sector and really excellent work, working very closely with our colleagues across the health boards and delivering service excellence and service improvement actually, we’ve done quite a lot of work in there as well.

And sustainability, some of the significant improvements in sustainability this year. Round about the green theaters, we’ve done a lot of work on things like medical gases and really beginning to build the way forward. And ahead of us, we’ve got some real challenging financial times ahead.

So I think we’ve got a real close focus on maintaining that commercial excellence, delivering on our sustainability and delivering on what we can do in terms of community benefits and community wealth building.

Nick:
Thanks to Julie, Angus and Gordon for that update. If you’ve been keeping up to date with our vlogs, blogs and social media throughout the year, you’ll know that this is just a snapshot of the incredible work that the procurement community has delivered in 2023. I look forward to another year working with you and building on the great progress that we’ve already made.

And let’s remember that as a community, we have the power and opportunity to make a huge difference to people’s lives across Scotland.

So please take some time and reflect over the Christmas break of what we have achieved as we enjoy the festival and I’ll see you all again in the New Year.

Tags: procurement, public sector procurement, Scottish Procurement

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