Clackmannanshire Council is the smallest mainland unitary authority in Scotland. The Council has never had a corporate focus on Procurement, with decentralised purchasing activity being the responsibility of the individual service areas including education, social services and property services. As in most local authorities, budgetary and human resources are being stretched, with increasing pressure to deliver more services and undertake more initiatives with limited additional funds being made available. After salaries, spend with external suppliers forms the largest portion of a Council's budget. Successful management of this spend will drive significant benefits, including more for less and improved quality of service. There are however, many other drivers for improving the way Clackmannanshire Council spends its money and who it spends it with including the impact on the local economy and SMEs and the Scottish Executive Procurement agenda.
SPS undertook a Procurement Healthcheck to review the Council's current arrangements in order to baseline and record the existing operation and help the Council develop a vision and action plan to deliver Procurement Excellence. We did this through the use of multi stakeholder workshops, interviews and detailed volume / value analysis - investigating what is being bought, from and by whom. With our help the Council have now justified the investment in a dedicated Procurement Manager and have undertaken an innovative targeted savings exercise to identify direct and indirect savings and opportunities for cost avoidance. Skills development programmes are in place and the Council are now taking a proactive active role in their local collaborative Procurement group.