The Red Review - The New Procurement Act Update webinar with Gemma Waring

In this episode, Jeremy is joined by procurement expert Gemma Waring. This follow-up session updated you on the latest news about the new Procurement Act, including the central digital platform and NPPS.

Download Gemma’s presentation deck here

Want to learn how to prepare for the biggest change to UK Public Procurement in a generation?

Visit our Procurement Act page to find out more

Transcript

Welcome to the Red Review with me Jeremy brim the Red Review is brought to you by growth ignition the transformation and

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capability development business all in the work wining space and the bid toolkit its product set in bid process

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and training videos uh welcome everybody to this uh lunchtime uh lunch and learn I guess on

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uh or update on the new procurement act uh so I'm Jeremy brim uh I lead growth

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ignition um we are a transformation Consulting and capability development

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business all in the work winning space so we help clients develop their processes performance environments and

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measures uh across business planning marketing but particularly key account management capture and bidding um and

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then we can train all of the people in those uh aspects and develop online

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tools for them uh learning videos etc etc so we do that for many of the large

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building contractors building consultancies but outsourcers it firms do a lot in nuclear and defense and all

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sorts of things have a great time doing it and whilst uh doing that for the last six years uh obviously this new

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procurement act malaky uh as a result of brexit has uh put its head above the parit and I

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crossed paths with my friend Gemma here um I thought to myself do I go and try

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and learn all about this stuff um am I possibly with life and business going to

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be able would to keep up to speed with it and the answer was no um and so I thought I'd make friends with somebody a

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grown-up who actually knows what they're talking about so welcome Gemma again thank you for coming

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back would you mind just telling us a little bit about yourself uh whilst we're just waiting for people to log in

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and things and then we will get underway yeah absolutely thank you for that it's uh it's not often I I'm the

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appropriate adult in the room I'm usually looking for one myself um but yeah so my name is Gemma where I've

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worked in the public sector procurement and tendering space for about 15 16 years now um and in that time I've gone

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from doing just bid side to also doing procurement side as well so I've got

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quite a unique perspective of seeing both sides of the table I'm still actively involved in managing carrying

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out procurements still actively involved in uh preparing for writing and then

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dissecting results in bids for for companies so uh I probably augment the

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other sectors that that you didn't mention Jeremy so I I do a lot of stuff around Services Health Care education

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skills employability uh things like that tend to be my focus areas when I'm I'm writing bids um but yeah I've been all

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over the procurement act since it started its Journey as as a white paper a good number of years ago now coming up

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to three years ago and have been actively involved for the last uh I'd say 18 months now in doing Road show

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events and training and talks initially with public sector buyers and suppliers and now I'm actively supporting people

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to prepare for changes so working with procurement teams on updating documents

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changing standard operating procedures reviewing their workflows and the team structures and things like that to make

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them uh ready to go for for for the ACT going live next February so uh I'm here

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to give you an update on what's happened since we last had one of these little uh catch ups and there's some good news

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there's some unknown still and there's there's not a lot of news I don't think but more gaps still than I I would

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probably have hoped there to be at this point in in the year yeah well we we shall see I forgot to do the housekeeping bit Gemma so um yeah we'll

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do that we have we have the Q&A and the chat open I've got both of those open

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gemma's the show really so I I'll keep uh track of the Q&A and uh chat I can

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see Christine had got her hand up would you mind Christine asking the question via chat or the Q&A um and then we will

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pick that up for you as we go but do do feel free to ask questions in the Q&A we'll pick them up towards the end uh oh

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it says the chat's disabled so you just have to use the Q&A apparently apologies I never get it right either the Q&A

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doesn't work or the chat doesn't work sorry about that but you use the Q&A and uh we we'll Hoover those up at the end

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unless I see one that's really pertinent and then I might interrupt but hopefully yeah go for it again so yeah J if you if

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you want to share your screen and get into the show that would be great thank you very much okay brilliant thank you

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for that and and as Jeremy said please do use that Q&A log as we go along and it's good in the Q&A log as well because

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anything we don't get to answer today if we were close to time we can sort of download the questions and and answer

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them all I'm not sure whether the initial question it usually is when I'm delivering online training is will we get a copy of the slides H that's

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usually the first question I get the answer to that was probably yes but probably not in PDF format to not make

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it easy for anybody to uh use them in your own team briefings you'll probably just get them in a PDF uh a after the

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event um because there's a couple of links and stuff in there that I've put together for people to use for resource

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material so it' be good if you if you got them uh but it will probably be PDF so first slide uh we've already done so

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um we've already done our little introduction so you don't need to know any more about us um I'm going to go through this last time we did this there

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was so much to say that I was like really I think we got really close to time and we didn't have a lot of time for questions at the end so I'm going to

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be quite conscious of keeping an eye on the time this time and and keeping us on track so um it's been six months

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actually since we did our last uh one of the these webinars and at that point in time we were moving towards a transition

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date of the 28th of October uh for the ACT going live now the vast majority of

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you online will probably be aware although not everybody is I've learned this week doing training and stuff still

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with other people uh that it's not now planning to go live until the 24th of

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February of next next year um the reason given for that was that there was an ancillary supporting bit of uh guidance

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and document and policy called National procurement policy statement that needed to be redrafted um which I'll talk about

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a little bit later on but in reality I think a lot of people are are maybe thinking it's more to do with the fact

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that the central digital platform uh isn't quite where it needs to be from a developmental point of view and although

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I can't comment on that because I don't work on any of the teams uh I I believe that myself to be the case because I

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think that they are still having uh issues there around the interconnectedness between all of the E

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senders like Delta proactis intend and this new Central digital platform and I will give you a little bit of an update

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on that uh later on as well so we're heading towards the 24th of

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February now one of the big props of the procurement act has been the additional

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documents guidance and support uh that commercial service have put out um and

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it's far reaching we've never had it before um however I think that most

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people I speak to are telling me that they feel like it's got to a point of white noise uh it's information overload

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there's new stuff getting released Here There and Everywhere You either catch some of it or you don't you got you know

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a lot of people will see a bit of guidance print it off or bookmark it or leave a tab open and want to get round

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to reading it but you never get to it's the same with emails you get and you're inboxed oh I'd like to look at that and then you never actually have time to do

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it so there was this plan to roll out this huge amount of guidance and

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documentation although primarily focused on the buyer Community uh so very very

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little promised or expected for us suppliers I'm talking about my supplier

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hat on today so they have released a lot more guidance and I've got links uh on

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the next slide for you to pick up where you can find uh this information it's about 90% there a couple of sheets still

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missing from the pack but the bulk of them have been produced so things like the new competitive flexible procedure

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there's a there's a fact sheet on that the new approach to Frameworks Dynamic markets selection stage pre-market

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engagement all of the major ones are done so that guidance is out there they also promised templates uh

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which again is is a new strot and support for for procurement team so things like they're changing assessment

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summaries uh to oh sorry no they're not changing in they changing standstill letters to assessments summaries I've

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spent the last year trying to get my brain to remember which I'm talking about and now it's like procurement actors won the fight so now I tend to

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talk about the procurement actors if it's live now which will stand me in good step next year but I have to keep correcting myself so they've got an

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assessment summary template uh there's going to be a new process in place as well around conflicts of interests where

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buyers have to State and record at the beginning and throughout the procurement process whether there's conf conflicts

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uh arising and what mitigating actions they've taken um there are more templates to come though specifically

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ones around things like there's supposed to be a whole pack of templates and information to help buyers enact that

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new competitive flexible procedure so that's coming along but but not quite

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there then we've got the central digital platform so this was the big one that everybody was waiting for so this is uh

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if you're not familiar with it the central digital platform was going is going to be uh a build up en coding

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terms from the find attender service so it will still be called find attender um

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it's called Central digital platform and all of the the documentation and guidance just in case it changes name in

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the future they don't have to go and reprint everything um so Central digital platform is like its generic

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name it was supposed to be released in time for everybody to register on it and for it to be transactional with all the

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new notices by the 28th of October and obviously that hasn't happened and just

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this week on Monday there was a further release of information about it which I did a LinkedIn post about but I will go

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over the content of that today as well and that's really critical because this

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platform um is essential to to everything working and everything being able to go live it's it's Central to

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compliance uh for buyers so so we need to make sure uh that it is ready to go

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and I know that you know from sort of back office e senders are um a long way away in no not a long way

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away a long way down the road I should say in terms of creating those new notices and and mix and putting them

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together it I think it's the it's the crossover point and then they get so far down then someone'll Challenge and say

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well that notice should have that in and that only gives you those options and that option's missing and then it all has to be redone and everyone's got to

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recode it so it's it's been a much more complex process um than I think that

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they ever anticipated um and you know people are already

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starting to ask questions about whether the 24th of February will get pushed back um even further due to this given

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that we're just about to ENT a crazy season and and you know not for us bid as we in terms of like we we're working

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usually but you know it's it's holiday period then we get back it's January it

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it just seems like timelines are getting a little bit tight so I'm sort of watching this

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space then we had the national procurement policy statement which I will talk about what I think might

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happen to it going forward um but that National procurement policy statement

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was initially issued um however when there was the change in government and uh the labor party took uh Power they

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decided to pull that National procurement policy statement and they want to reissue it uh with more of a

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labor policy driven Focus uh so we'll look at that a little bit later on so a

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couple of areas you can see we're nearing completion there but a couple of them still seem a bit of a way off and

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there's no time frames again when that we have no exact date for when the platform will be ready we've got no

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exact exact date for when that procurement policy statement will be reissued so we're a little bit of flux

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and the problem with that is you know public sector suppliers um tend to just

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we're very flexible very pragmatic we'll just deal with whatever is presented to us uh so you know the it's the buyers

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that make making the big changes to their templates and processes and all that at the moment we'll just wait and see what tenders we get after the 24th

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of February and react to them um but it's very hard for them to change uh

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when they don't feel like they've got the full picture you know a lot of them kind of know what they're supposed to do but then they're thinking well I can't

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go and design a competitive flexible procedure because I want to wait and see this template pack that's due out and

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you know we want to register on the platform but we can't do that yet because we don't know what it looks like and we don't know who needs to be

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involved in that in terms of the team and the resource and who's going to have access rights so it's it's all just

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still in a little bit of a of a no man's land at the moment in terms of of of

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making it all work so I've got the link here to those guidance documents if you click on that that uh page it will give

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you access to every single one of the documents that are available which as I said there's only two or three that aren't currently

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available there is a uh fact sheet on at the central digital platform so a

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specific web page the one that was released on the 25th uh of November just this week so you can click on that and

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have a look at that and you can also sign up uh to a newsletter for that particular page so in the future if

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things change as it goes live as we're allowed to access it as suppliers uh you you should receive notification on that

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page and just out of Interest as well we've got the sourcing Playbook so for people that aren't aware of this this is

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the go-to how to guide for the vast majority um of public sector spend in

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service and product category construction has a slightly different uh approaches as it often does because it's

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just different in in the way it's procured um but they are currently reviewing and rewriting bits of this to

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make sure it's fully compliant but it's it's just an interesting resource to kind of keep an eye on because again

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when that gets updated that will give the buyers they're updated how to guide on on on enacting uh the procurement act

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so as suppliers it can get you sort of that bit further in terms of your understanding of of what the buyers are

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after so I hope that's okay for everybody I will just I will keep going I'm used to doing training where I stop

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and pause and discuss so I'll I'll just keep going through um I wanted to look at open Frameworks

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to start with so uh I think we mentioned in the last update that we did the the

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changes that are coming in in regards to Frameworks is that there's going to be two different framework options going

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forward for buyers to choose from our framework managers whoever whoever's running the framework they have a choice

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to do a closed framework or an open framework so a closed framework is is exactly what we have now they run a

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tendering competition to establish the framework it runs for four years it has established call-off mechanisms

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established Lots number of suppliers Etc it's exactly what we have now the

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difference with the open framework option if a buyer or framework manager chooses to use it is that they are then

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allowed to run that framework for up to eight years but what they have to do is

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within that eight-year period there's at least two trigger points where they have to uh refresh that framework they have

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to open it back up to competition and this is one of the areas with the procurement act where the devil

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sort of was was in the detail and it was kind of how does that work what does that look like then how do you reopen it

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to competition and you know how do we still follow the the ethos and the requirements of of you know procurement

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legislation and make that happen so there's been a little bit more clarity given on that and it's interesting

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because I've spoken with a number of framework management companies individual buyers that manage Frameworks

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and when they actually look at how they'd have to manage this open framework uh in my experience a 100% of

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them have just said I can't understand why anybody would choose to do that so it's a bit of an area where there's been

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an idea formed but when you actually take it all the way through to fruition it doesn't quite make sense in practice

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in my opinion and so we'll see what people think of it so it's still established initially via a competitive

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tendering process so under the new RS they can do the open or competitive flexible procedure to establish it um

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you will also get your call off mechanisms uh established there can be broken down into Lots Etc uh it's got

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those that that eight years but opening it uh a couple of years uh a couple of times sorry during those eight years and

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then the first sort of trig trigger here terms of like why would I do this so the

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whole purpose of of having this eight-year framework is where you've got common goods and services where largely

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you rocore the framework every four years and you get the same Lots with the same suppliers on supplying the same

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thing and it's it's to try and remove unnecessary procurement however um when

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a buyer chooses to refresh that framework they then have to run a tender

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notice and republish it and run a tendering exercise for any new applicants and they have to follow the

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awarding procedure uh that they that they have to follow anyway to to establish the tender in in the the

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framework in the first place so it's very difficult to then sort of understand where the benefit lies

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because I've got eight years and instead of doing one competition four years it

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expires do another one another four years over an eight-year period it's saying that it can open up another two

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so so it's three lots of of tendering and procure rather than two over an 8year period those two open points as

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well are only minimums so they can opt to do more so they could say we're going to refresh it every year or every two

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years or whatever it is when they establish the the framework initially so it's very difficult to understand

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logically why a buyer would choose to do that it all depends on how you refresh

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so what does that refresh look like because you got the publication requirement there but how do we get people on and off the framework so what

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they've given is is two scenarios so you've got an example where you've got a framework and whether it's broken down

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into Lots it doesn't really matter but say you've got a framework and there's no limit on the number of

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suppliers so that's really simple and easy so you do your initial

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tender you award those suppliers a place on the framework when it comes to your first refresh point you render for it

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and the people who are existing on it can either say just roll me over onto the next version of the framework if

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that's one of the allowable options so you've just got an automatic carryover they can opt to say review my

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previous bid and rescore it don't know why you would do that um but there you go um and then the final one is that you

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can actually redo your tender and recompete with all of the new

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people who are trying to get on the framework uh and and obviously in this example with there being no cut off

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point it would obviously be everyone that meets whatever standard it is that's being set would then get a place

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on the framework um so that that's you know in that instance what the buyer is

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hoping is that everybody that's already on it will say yeah just roll me over onto the next one um and then anybody

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they just have to you know maybe there's a couple of new bids that they have to evaluate to see whether those people get on however uh if this was three years or

19:52

say say at that secondary point in the framework say it's sort of year six or year seven you may well want to redo

19:59

your bid you might want to you know depending on what pricing you've put in or depending on what the questions have

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been asked or what you've updated in your business or what you've changed in your solution or your business approach

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uh you might want to redo your tender and I actually did a webinar with 30 different companies on and I did a poll

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and said in this instance would you ever just roll over or just say take my past tender and uh I think it was 93% of

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people on the webinar said absolutely not I would always rebid um so and update my offer and update what I've

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information I've put in so I think it's maybe a bit naive on behalf of whoever's thought this idea up uh that that a lot

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of biders would just go yeah it's fine just take my old bid I don't really care about writing a new one the complication

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with the open Frameworks comes then not that that's not complicated already uh

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I'm just going to try and open a curtain I shut them over because I got winter sun coming and it was blinding me and now it's gone and and I look like I'm

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sat in the dark um the complication comes when you do limit the number of suppliers so it's a

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framework that's initially established uh and say there's a a maximum number of three um three suppliers on each

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lot when the supplier then goes when the buyer then goes to refresh the framework

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if all three providers want to stay on where do we go then so what has to happen

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then well the guidance that's been given is that there's only the bottom two options so if you're one of those

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existing three suppliers you can either roll the D and say just use my last tender score so use my initial tender

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and just just take the scores from that um and then they will review any and evaluate any of the new bids coming

21:39

in or you can render and again you know if it's a if it's if it's a limited

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number of participants there's new people putting in brand new bids I don't know a lot of bid teams that would just

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not bother to to update or refresh or redo their tender in that instance because in that instance obviously there

21:56

there significant uh room there for you to potentially lose your place on the

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framework and this is the uh example that's uh being given so you can see

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here um basically within the initial version of the framework I'll just pull this on because I'm going to talk

22:13

through but you'll get this as an example first iteration of the framework you can see there supplier a b and c all

22:19

one the places on it great when it goes to do its refresh Point there's two new

22:24

suppliers entered uh the bidding pool suppliers d and e now now in this example supplier a said you know what

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we're 85% we're well ahead of everybody else just take our pass score they didn't didn't bother redoing their bids

22:38

so so they've kept their place suppliers B and C decided to refresh their bids to

22:43

render and as you can see there supplier B increased their score a bit supplier C decreased their score a bit that then m

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means that supplier D in this example Leap Frogs Leap Frogs over supplier C

22:57

and get be gets that third spot on the framework so that's how they think it

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will work in practice and there are benefits to it because it you know it keeps the keeps the framework fresh it

23:08

allows new people in I just don't think that in if that that would be useful I

23:13

guess if it was like a 10 year or a 15E framework something like that but for this to have to happen twice within

23:19

eight years effectively you're going to end up as a procurement person running three procurements in eight years

23:24

instead of two now as I said the vast majority of people in practice have said to me there's absolutely no way I'd

23:30

bother doing this we're just going to run closed Frameworks but then I also know that Crown commercial Service uh I

23:36

know who who have had a bit of a battering this week over uh other framework issues um have said that they

23:43

are going to go for this version of Frameworks for the ones that are due up just after uh the ACT goes live they've

23:49

actually delayed the procurement of a framework to get it out under the procurement act so they can run it as an

23:55

open framework so and I think that a lot of the public sector are going are looking to what they do and you'll see

24:00

that being replicated across other authorities so maybe keep an eye on those if you want to see how this works

24:06

out but it just seems like a bit of a nonsense in practice to be honest um but again my that's my my personal opinion

24:14

uh and and it's been echoed by a few colleagues as well so that's open Frameworks sorry Jeremy go just a quick

24:20

question Laur had asked this sounds very much like a DPS um question mark but it it it sort

24:27

of does sort of doesn't does it because it's in effect it's rolling uh but yeah

24:33

DPS is different because uh the clients have to send every tender to everyone

24:38

and there's no direct award opportunities they're a bit of a different Beast DPSS aren't they to this

24:45

yeah and and they're phasing out DPSS so DPSS that are currently in play have to

24:51

um Cease to Exist by the 23rd of February 2029 so they've got a fouryear

24:57

life after the ACT goes live and they're going to be replaced by Dynamic markets which are essentially DPS is where you

25:04

just do the initial selection stage you're on there and you know it's a competitive tender then to to sort of

25:11

Win Win business from from that Dynamic Market once it's established so this is still a framework because it's still the

25:17

full shebang you know it's still selection and award to establish it uh it's just these entry points and I can

25:23

see what they've tried to do uh they've tried to sort of say well let's try and make it a bit more let's not keep

25:28

procuring but trying to you basically getting three lots of procurement in an eight-year period rather than a

25:34

four-year period um so a lot of people are saying what's what's the point in it so I'm Keen to see what what way crown

25:41

commercial go with it and if it makes sense I might know a little bit actually Gemma because I was in Parliament

25:46

yesterday um I know I saw that and things so the mood music was so you you

25:53

might have noticed that Crown Commercial Services have released management consulting for

25:59

uh which I've G path a bit about because they've done a whole host of stuff that they didn't warn anyone about they

26:04

didn't tell them it was coming it was three months late and then didn't tell anyone it was out um and there's a you

26:10

know they've they've suddenly asked for evidence within your 2,000 per component and things uh but the main one of the

26:17

big commercial issues with it is that it's come out as a two-year framework not a four-year

26:23

framework um and it's because the government haven't fully settled on what they want from these things and so I

26:31

suspect the towards these open Frameworks is because as the new industrial strategy and the spending

26:37

review comes around in the spring that might change the direction of travel on some things so I think

26:44

interesting it's about ccs and generally government being needing to be more Fleet of foot as they try and deal the

26:51

extreme lack of money knocking about and still M yeah so I think it's something

26:57

to do with that definitely it's uh it's it's still fresh

27:02

isn't it the uh the change over of government and you know do forget that sometimes

27:07

but it's yeah we just just want to keep an eye on see whether they work in practice see if they take off but I have

27:13

a feeling that they might not take off that well but well you can hold me to that later um there's been additional um

27:22

information put out since we talked last uh in regards to remedy so remedies being challenge for people aren't

27:28

familiar with the kind of um the wording of it this basically means what your right is as a supplier if the

27:34

procurement has been unfair or you don't feel like it's been carried out uh correctly according to the rules and

27:40

regulations um we'll still have to go to the high court uh but what I find

27:46

interesting is that in terms of what the high court can hear challenges on there

27:51

are a few areas that they spec it specifically says they're not allowed to

27:57

investigate any claims against first one being if a buyer is considered barriers to

28:03

smmes second one is if the buyers had regard to that National procurement policy statement so they're being told

28:08

they've got to do it but then actually if you don't do it there's no real challenge over it and that is the social value and sustainability piece and also

28:17

for below threshold contracts the rules around those can't be challenged in a high court either so I just find this a

28:24

little bit disappointing because it's basically everything there is just compounding issues for smaller suppliers

28:31

in my opinion you know it's sort of it's sort of cailing the ability to actually challenge anything uh when you're being

28:37

treated UNF unfairly we're going to look at the procurement review unit in a minute maybe they'll mop up uh the

28:43

excess there or all the issues there that that can't be raised but it just seems like a bit it makes everything a

28:49

little bit toothless you know everything's oh smmes remove barriers for SES consider smmes but then oh by

28:55

the way if you don't do that then there's no real problem with it cuz no going to say anything uh they've they've said that

29:01

the automatic suspension of a contract or the award of a contract I should say can only be applied during the eight

29:07

working day standstill period so that's important to know so if you want to stop a contract being entered into you must

29:14

do it during that eight-day working period you can still raise a challenge after that but the the what once that

29:20

you you've sort of got past that period uh the sort of you know damages and awards that you'll get in your favor are

29:27

definitely uh lessened after that 8-day period you've got 30 days to raise your

29:32

challenge from when you knew or ought to have known about the breach so so it's tightened up and given very specific

29:38

time frames in regards to raising challenge uh remedies so the remedies being sort of you know the measures that

29:45

the high court can put in place uh in if they uphold a challenge so if they find in your favor um if it's pre-contract so

29:53

if it's before that contract details notice has has been published then you uh dual stage of the um award procedure

30:01

they can uh set aside so that's that you know sort of invalidate invalidating the

30:06

decision uh and sort of usually making the procurement start again they can mandate corrective actions so where you

30:13

know potentially maybe if you've complained that there's a conflict of interest on the um evaluation panel they

30:20

could you know stop the award of contract and and advise The Authority that they've got to reevaluate the

30:26

tenders with that person not on the panel or something like that you've got being awarded damages so you can still

30:31

be awarded damages uh pre-contractual and then there's any other appropriate orders that that the

30:38

court seem so that that's kind of where it can go uh in the future if you raise a challenge pre

30:44

contractually post contractually obviously things get a little bit more difficult because what the high court

30:50

has to balance then is what's in the best public interest in terms of of monetary so obviously if you've stopped

30:57

something before before it started then it's much easier to manage if a contract's already been started even if

31:03

there's found to be uh you know a valid challenge against that decision the court has to weigh up the cost of of

31:10

removing that service paying damages to one person setting it up again what you know that they have to calculate that

31:15

and decide the best way to go um they are still allowed to set aside the contract so they can nullify the

31:21

contract in that phase uh they can again award damages and they can also modify

31:27

the contract terms um so for example as it says there they can say it's not in

31:33

public interest or it's not practical to determinate that contract but instead of it being a four-year contract you can

31:39

have 12 months and in that 12 months the team has to repr procure uh for the remaining three years or something like

31:45

that so that's where we're going to in the future now I mentioned the procurement review unit there apologies

31:51

the graphic is a bit fuzzy here I actually stole it from a crown Commercial Services webinar uh did a

31:57

little cheeky screen grab but for those of you that don't know there will be this enhanced version

32:03

of the mystery shopper service that will be available uh under the procurement act and it has these three strands um

32:11

within its remit so the first two there are related to monitoring buyer activity

32:16

which would be very interesting to see how how much teeth that has and how much action it actually takes I know the mystery shopper service does you know

32:25

very similar job and recommends corrective actions but but the compliance review service is basically a

32:30

proactive service so the one in the middle the the public procurement review service is the mystery shopper service

32:37

you as a supplier or any other stakeholder can go and raise an issue a complaint for them to go and investigate

32:43

uh related to how are procurement is being carried out so very similar the compliance review service is actually

32:49

going to be proactively auditing um buying organizations and Contracting

32:55

authorities to make sure that they are work working in line with the requirements and the ethos of the

33:00

procurement act so things like um are you doing pre-market engagement why aren't you producing pre-market

33:06

engagement notices uh you haven't published your annual kpis against that

33:11

particular contract and they have the power to put in place quality improvement plans with Contracting

33:18

authorities uh and if they so choose they can make those public so if a particular Authority and I'm sure those

33:25

of you on the call will know every time I do this in a in an open training session they'll say oh like such and such that always do this or they always

33:31

do that the idea is that this this unit will then put an improvement plan in place for that Authority and they have

33:38

to meet the terms of it and they can actually publish it and make it public as well be very interesting to see if

33:43

they go to those lents and which authority is the first one who has its uh school report published with its uh

33:49

its bad behavior noted down on I'm sure nobody wants to to uh to have that Accolade the final one is the dearment

33:56

review service so some of you might have heard about the debarment process so this is a going to be a publicly

34:03

available list of any supplier that ticks the wrong box on the mandatory and

34:08

discretionary exclusions in the selection questionnaire um

34:14

this procurement review unit will basically see any CH so Bas the process

34:21

is that the buyer sees it either through you you've ticked the wrong box on the form or say for example poor performance

34:27

perance on a contract they then have to notify the review unit about that because that will be something you have

34:32

to tick in the future the review unit will then investigate that and it's

34:37

quite a lengthy process um you know it's not a case if you tick the wrong box on a form once and someone pushes a button

34:43

and you go on this public list of of bad suppliers uh they basically do an investigation you're allowed to make

34:49

representations for yourself um you can challenge it you can appeal it they give you a standstill period when they notify

34:57

you're going to go on it if you challenge it during that period it withholds you going on it till they've investigated the challenge so it's it's

35:03

a bit of a lengthy process and again I've heard mixed reviews from people about how effective uh they think this

35:09

will or won't be um we'll have to wait and see in practice we'll have to see

35:14

see what happens um I don't know what that list is going to look like um they

35:20

haven't said you know they say there's going to be a public list of suppliers I don't know whether that's going to be a

35:26

page on the central digital platform form I don't know if you're going to have your profile tagged in some way I

35:33

I've got no idea nobody knows yet what this is actually going to look like so that is the the procurement review unit

35:41

so you might want to keep an eye on that one as well uh because that would be your first Port of Call and I think the

35:46

purpose of it is to try and remove the amount of things that go to court challenges and the costs associated with

35:53

this so this also potentially is a bit of an arbitration service um between disgruntled suppliers and the buyer

36:02

Community now we get on to the central digital platform so I've obviously already sort of teed this up by talking

36:08

about what it is so this is the place the find attender service where every buyer will in the future have a profile

36:15

uh with users underneath them every supplier will also have a profile um and

36:21

uh notices will be tagged and coded definitely against the buyers but I don't know whether it'll be tagged and

36:26

coded against the suppliers at the moment I think that was the original intention but they seem to be having problems with the uh API on

36:33

it the it was originally obviously supposed

36:38

to be ready by the TW for the 28th of October that didn't happen we were then told that it would be ready and you

36:44

could see it by the end of this month and you know we sort of like oh we'll HED our bets and do the 29th of November

36:49

then but obviously it hasn't turned up yet um so we're still waiting on it but

36:54

they did release that additional information which I've given you link to um in one of the earlier slides so what

37:01

do we know about it what have they actually confirmed about it firstly buyers will be able to register on it

37:07

from late January now considering every buyer has to be registered on it

37:12

correctly by the 24th of February in order to do any business so they can't publish any notices like contract

37:19

notices award notices anything uh if they've not got a a registration on this

37:25

platform um they're not going to even be allowed to log in and try to get on it till late January which I think for most

37:32

people uh I orig initial alarm Bells there you know You' got the whole of the

37:37

public sector needing to register on it what if there's issues with it what if they need to redo stuff on it it doesn't

37:43

seem like an awful lot of time to me uh to get that on compounding that for us

37:49

mere suppliers exact quote from the the guidance there is no hurry to get

37:55

suppliers registered apparently there's no there's no hurry because in in their mind uh the people that are creating

38:02

this they're saying well if the first say the first tender notice contract

38:09

notices are going to be called tender notices going forward if the first tender notice isn't published until the

38:15

24th of February or the 25th of February and that's like a month or six weeks

38:20

then the first suppliers that we need to to allocate work to because you have to be registered on it so you cannot be

38:27

awarded a public sector contract after the 24th of February unless you're registered as a supplier on this

38:34

system and they're just thinking well the suppliers that are interested in that one have got six weeks to log on I

38:40

don't think they've got any comprehension that as soon as it goes live the vast majority of responsible suppliers are going to want to go and

38:46

log on and register on it and get a profile sorted on it but it just seems to be this very uh Blas approach to just

38:54

like yeah suppliers can just sign up as they go you know when they got a tender they want to apply for or when they want

38:59

to look for a tender or they can just you know they can just apply as they go it's not a big deal I thing is hugely

39:05

naive and I think it's going to cause it'll be like trying to get a wasis tickets all over again we'll all just be sat there with computers crashing and

39:11

things loading for for decades just hoping we get to the end of something without it cashing us out or losing our

39:18

place in the queue or whatever it is within that platform what you're going to be required to do is to have a

39:24

profile so your your company will have its own profile on there um you will have to complete what they're calling

39:30

your supplier information and I'll give you the list of what that is on the next slide uh in a second um and this is the

39:38

bit for me where the madness I feel like of sort of you know Alice in Wonderland at this point so the current

39:45

understanding and the current way it's due to work is that you will as a supplier your journey is going to be

39:51

find a notice on find attender service click on that notice that notice

39:57

will still say go out to Delta proactis wherever you log in there you download

40:04

your tender documents you review them decide to bid on the opportunity then when you need to upload

40:11

your bid you have to go back into the central digital platform and generate a

40:16

unique code give that code to whichever ecenter you're using and that will then

40:23

let them read it let it pull your supplier information across from that

40:29

system the new Central digital platform into the procurement platform you're

40:34

using where you're actually uploading your tender documents I thought that this would be

40:40

an Ask once thing so like once I've put given that code to Delta or wherever it just has my information stored

40:46

apparently that's not the case apparently you have to generate a unique code for every single procurement uh which seems like a

40:53

Madness to me um also this new system uh doesn't check or verify any

40:59

information so you type it in the system doesn't have any verification process so

41:05

we just assume it's correct and then it's still up to the individual buyers

41:11

to check that information it also doesn't allow obviously the Project

41:16

Specific questions so what you might then have to do is upload that SQ but then the eprocurement system will then

41:22

have additional selection stage questions then your it and your your pricing submission as as well so for

41:29

something that's supposed to be made making everything easier in an Ask want's thing for me it's I think you can

41:35

tell by my tone how I how I feel about it I just think it's again something that it hasn't been thought through

41:40

correctly from a user point of view and certainly not from suppliers you know for buyers they register on it once they

41:47

will use a platform like Delta or proactor or whatever to create their noes in they ping them in it'll link

41:53

automatically for them it's a lot easier even if you've already logged in uh to find a tender if you've got a login you

41:59

have to re-register I'd like to know what that process looks like and I'm sure there'll be bugs and issues around using the same emails and things like

42:06

that um but they have promised that there will be more guidance and videos

42:12

um due to come um to help us uh navigate this new workflow that we're going to

42:18

have to work with in tenders and I think you know that's just a a major faf

42:24

mature bidding teams will get used to that faf and we'll learn and adapt and and sort of go with it um I just think

42:31

when you think about you know smaller businesses ones with limited resour maybe your third sector organizations

42:38

people new saying I'll give this public sector malar AO I think this is just like one of those things that might just

42:43

be a step too far for people and it just is like a level of of ridiculous process that I just don't think people have uh

42:50

will have a lot of patience for so the information that you'll be asked for so you'll go on you'll create

42:56

a company profile and I believe you can have users within that profile so more than one person can access the the the

43:03

account but again haven't seen inside of it yet um your basic information so the

43:09

part one of the uh the standard selection questionnaire you know your company name and and all that sort of

43:15

stuff uh they will ask you for copies of your accounts from the most recent Financial years and again I it will be

43:22

your responsibility to keep updating them manually I don't think there'll be anything automated to remind you

43:28

uh You' got to put in your connected person so this will have quite a big impact because they're going to tighten up on this in the SQ stage around the

43:35

connected persons and what they've been involved in and what they haven't done so they want a lot more visibility over

43:41

that uh and then you will also have your mandatory and discretionary exclusions in there as well um so that also should

43:48

link probably to that deartment list wherever that exists uh in the metaverse in the future um so that's what they're

43:54

going to ask you for so you can see there's nothing in there you'll still need to be asked about you know things like your references your insurances all

44:02

that sort of stuff so you'll have this it'll go over but then anything sort of

44:08

after the uh what you see in the current standard selection questionnaire everything you see after the exclusions

44:13

they're gonna have to ask that all in the portal anyway and you're still going to have to type out that bit of it demo

44:19

we we had a quick question does does the supplier code have an expiry time frame

44:27

uh I believe so I think that um I think that's why it's like a want code I don't know what that is but that's why you

44:33

have to keep giving it over and over again so for for different ones so I think that it has a limited and I've

44:40

also been told again this was like the initial development earlier on this year whether they' got to this point or not

44:45

that they you could have multiple versions of your supplier information you know for example if you would you

44:50

know have different companies or sometimes you're your parent company and sometimes you're the UK entity or whatever apparently you can have sort of

44:57

different versions of it was the original intention um I I know that they did demo it at an event um a local

45:05

government event last week but I couldn't go to it because I was um I was delivering training for for a change um

45:12

but uh I sort of asked Lindsay Maguire directly and said when is this going to

45:18

be available for anybody to actually look at in the general public and she said oh we're working on our videos and stuff at the moment we'll have something

45:24

available soon so okay soon hopefully this side of

45:29

Christmas but I'm guessing not yeah I'm I'm just conscious time J We're because we've got a bit we've got a few

45:35

questions to get through as well so yeah I'll just do this National procurement policy statement is the last bit and

45:40

then we're ready for questions awesome um so I've already mentioned the reissue

45:46

of the the national procurement policy statement they did do a very short St stakeholder survey which closed earlier

45:52

this month to try and Garner opinions although it wasn't widely publicized um it should be re sorry j it was it was

46:00

out over half term as well wasn't it yeah so a lot of people missed it um

46:06

should be issued this side of Christmas but again we don't know and it should be updated in line with labor party policy

46:13

and just a quick quick couple of headlines so what I believe this to sort of mean based on what they've said pre

46:18

and post uh election uh expect it to contain some kind of ring fencing

46:25

favoritism of uk- based businesses but that causes a huge headache with compliance with our Trea trade

46:30

agreements like the GPA and the trans uh Pacific partnership so we'll have to see what happens with that uh Fair payment

46:37

terms for supply chain you know they've been in the news even talking about private sector revealing supply chain

46:42

payments uh recognition of trade unions and fair working terms so flexible working terms Etc might play a part in

46:49

in that policy statement they've mentioned a national procurement plan but nobody knows what that means whether they're talking about rationalizing the

46:56

rail and you know National energy I'm not sure uh but also there's a a real

47:02

focus on growth in future jobs sectors so looking at where the projected growth

47:07

is and targeting activity towards them and also tackling uh unemployment poor

47:13

mental health uh as well in terms of barriers to people being able to enter

47:19

uh the labor market so that's kind of the end of my bit cool thank you very

47:24

much just on the uh National procur plan bit so as I said I was in Parliament yesterday to meet Mike Rita just to

47:31

check he was all right really my mate who's become an MP but uh in order to do that I had to sign up for some

47:37

engineering conference thing that was being held in on the Terrace uh which

47:43

was enthralling obviously um but there was a talk by a guy called John love day

47:48

who's one of the directors at the IPA the big projects um sort of government

47:54

Hub that are overseeing all of the big nuclear projects hs2 prisons and all of

47:59

that stuff and he mentioned there's kind of a waterfall effect so you've got a lot of people thought when the budget

48:06

happened we would suddenly know lots of things about you know funding and what was going to happen into the future in

48:13

reality there's very little detail really in the budget so it doesn't really tell you what's going to happen with National Hospital program and

48:20

things like that but the reason why is there's going to be a spending review in the spring which will be connected and

48:26

will come at the same time uh as a national indust industrial strategy at

48:32

at the top and below that in effect you'll have the national procurement plan aligned with it and okay the

48:39

pipeline of big National construction projects and the Investments government going to make green

48:44

Investments uh etc etc so there should be this pyramid effect or waterfall effect down from the industrial strategy

48:52

to determine in you know what they're going to invest in in including investing

48:57

um you know the national wealth fund and pensions money and all sorts of stuff so that's quite exciting sounds quite

49:03

clever or to be honest with you bloody Common Sense isn't it really um yeah actually joining things up in a line

49:09

instead of doing them at Hop randomly be nice to have a plan wouldn't it what the country is meant to be doing so um yeah

49:15

that's all up for grabs then so uh we best uh tackle uh all of the questions we've had the quintessential classic

49:22

will they be sent a copy of the slides yes we can do that g if you don't mind sending sending me a PDF directly

49:29

afterwards uh an email will go out uh to all of you and everyone in our database

49:34

tomorrow morning with a copy of a link to the recording and a copy of the the

49:40

deck or a link to the deck so we'll we'll do that tomorrow morning uh so thank you for that

49:46

uh so let's go backwards through the content so uh Ann Lee if a tender

49:53

evaluation is extended it could expire oh brilliant so that's more of an ex

49:58

exclamation of frustration rather than a question I'd meant to filter out a few

50:04

of those uh guessing that conflict of interest uh will be asked separately per

50:10

tender um yes that's right yeah so they're supposed to have an an individual um conflict of interest and

50:16

there's a specific form and there's specific three categories of conflicts they've got to assess for each tender uh

50:23

pre- tender and they've got to highlight where the conflicts are and what they're going to do about it in the process to

50:29

mitigate uh those cool um Anna's also asked the the the disbarment list the

50:37

naughty list will that start off blank and then people then it will build or is

50:42

it going to start pre-populated with people who are already on the naughty step no I I believe everything is um

50:49

forward so like that they they've said that obviously the the purpose of doing all the new notices and stuff as well as

50:55

and this was to to gain more strategic data on spend that's why they're being quite tight over making sure everything

51:01

at least gets a contract details notice so they've got a better picture of spend and I was told that it's building from

51:07

zero so it's a new database so they said it will take at least 80 months to two years to be able to draw any meaningful

51:13

strategic data out of it so yeah it'll be blanked and again who went who gets the crown for being the first person on

51:20

it interesting to watch I could I could think of some candidates um my friend Michelle B has

51:28

asked uh so you can't go on it by accident essentially um was what we were

51:33

the platform is this uh no the list of naughty steps no you can't no it's it's it's not

51:40

so it's not like an automated process uh although the fact that you have to do your your selection um stage information

51:48

or supplier information I should say in the platform is those exclusions it would make sense to me

51:53

logically that if you tick the wrong box it fires you into list or fires you into

52:00

that dearment process with the procurement review unit but um yeah I as far as I know no it's not automatic

52:06

there's a process cool Okie do so Michelle's happy about that uh did uh Kate uh k sorry is

52:15

asked did CCS reveal which framework is being held back until post 24th of Feb

52:21

to be issued as an open framework so I know do you know what for

52:26

did know what it was it's not in my head at the moment K I'll have a look at that one I've got it because I was discussing

52:32

it with people at the time that it happened so I'll have it somewhere but I don't have it with me at the moment it's not my Warren is saying it's tech

52:39

services for and she thinks it's RB 6295 which is

52:45

catchy uh well done team we've devised it between us RS so uh oh an's asking

52:54

what is ts4 d os7 question

52:59

mark uh just just FRA the I think that's just a reference to the

53:04

framework okay yeah yeah uh cool so let's get through all of that uh oh

53:13

we've done that one uh my mate Paul Collins was asking when an open framework reopens does it

53:20

have to be on the exact same set of requirements contracts policies Etc as

53:25

the original urement if not uh can they uh be changed uh it really diminishes

53:32

any benefit to the buyer surely in repr procuring the thing uh yeah so no they're not allowed

53:39

to change it basically it has to stay largely on the same terms um unless there was a new requirement you know

53:46

like say they've updated the standard selection questionnaire in the in between or those a new mandatory requirement they can add those in but it

53:53

largely has to stay the same M of course it does

54:01

um when suppliers ask for a rescore review would this involve resubmission

54:08

update of the submission or only the docs that are previously submitted so do you get another bite at

54:14

the Cherry I guess um is that in relation to when you get

54:21

rescored on the framework I'm guessing yeah so do

54:26

can you read that one again uh no I can't i' I've gone and I

54:34

think it was just around the rescoring basically no I think that you have to choose a path and you're on that path then so like I saw one there asking as

54:41

well about whether say if you do choose to redo your tender and you come out with a lower score can you say oh you

54:48

know forget that just use the old one no I think you've got to pick a path and stick to it and if you're rendering you

54:53

would have to render along with all of those other organ ization so it would be like a full reter but and that's why

55:00

this that's the sort of Madness within the system of like why on Earth would a buying Authority want to do that every couple of years I don't know it must be

55:07

if things are changing uh oh Warren had seen an opportunity only three months ago uh

55:14

looking for a supplier to partner on the central digital platform which suggests it's nowhere near uh and what you're

55:21

saying Gema about their appalling behaviors towards us as suppliers you know I'll leave that to last minute

55:26

they'll figure it out you're right that's going to really inhibit smmes or to be honest with you

55:32

GMA I find uh the maturity of companies with anything below a thousand people um

55:39

is fairly immature um and so I think there's going to be some bumps uh somebody anonymous

55:47

had asked uh how is pricing being regarded with regard to existing

55:54

framework suppliers to new entrance three years on so I guess is that this that open framework bit because the

56:00

incumbents may be a lot cheaper I guess they've got embodied knowledge haven't

56:05

they yeah it is again it's one of those things that we just don't know till we see in practice what this is actually

56:11

going to look like because again but equally a new supplier might have already seen the existing pricing and

56:17

then be able to underprice just it it commercially I don't really understand how it's going

56:23

to work either it's one of the many any whatif scenarios with that those open Frameworks that the more you look at

56:30

different strands of it the more you think this just doesn't bloody make sense at all uh I'm sure it won't all come at a

56:37

crushing point in February well I guess that's do you think it will get uh push

56:42

back again Gemma or do you think I have my very I'm starting to build strong

56:48

suspicions that it will yes uh I think that and I'm wondering what excuse they're going to pull out the bag

56:53

because last time they said it was because of that National procurement policy statement which didn't make any sense because the whole purpose of it

56:59

was that it was a standalone um thing I feel like unless they have a lot of

57:04

magic elves that like working overtime over Christmas um then I think that we

57:11

might see a further delay but I might I might be wrong but I I I'm starting to

57:17

hear more and more Whispers that we might see it start to to get delayed again yeah interesting and what what do

57:24

clients think about this local authorities health health authorities central government what are The Vibes

57:30

you're getting from procurement friends um they feel overwhelmed and exasperated and it's like I said it's

57:37

almost like white noise too much information um you know that they're sort of being fed things drip fed things

57:44

they've done the training they don't feel like the training is it's just basically made them learn the facts again it hasn't helped them know what to

57:51

change in practice a lot of them are saying well we get halfway to doing something and then we realiz we can't do

57:57

that because we still don't know this and they want to communicate and and fix and change things and be ready but a lot

58:03

of them are saying like either they're looking for as many ways as possible to keep doing business as usual within the

58:10

regs um or they're just sort of saying that they're finding it very difficult to to move forward meaningfully with

58:17

it it's really challenging is it I thought I think similar to not wanting to be the first supplier on the nauy

58:23

list um no client wants to be the first client to end up in court and lose when

58:29

they get yeah absolutely yeah that's the big thing so I remember I did a podcast

58:34

with Rebecca ree from trz and Hamlin sort of the top lawyer in the country procurement lawyer in the country um

58:40

ages ago now and her top piece of advice is that you know clients are generally

58:45

pretty terrified of this um and we need to get our head around it as you are

58:50

coming on this webinar um to be able to coach them on how to find their way through it it's kind of

58:56

capture of your key opportunities if you've got something that's coming around to rebid after this act comes out

59:03

it's a good idea to get ahead of it with the client and Coach them on what works and what doesn't work and how to navigate through this but yeah you need

59:11

this kind of expertise um to be able to do that which brings us beautifully to our our final minute I guess so um thank

59:18

you very much Gemma uh thank you thanks everyone for your questions no thank you for the

59:24

questions so we not quite made it through all of them but I think we've done okay um and so uh if you would like

59:30

to get into the detail of this and the specifics for your business Gemma is

59:35

available uh to engage we've we've just got a client reached out to us today actually um who wants a webinar for all

59:42

of their key uh leaders on the procurement act specific to their business and sector um that gemer and I

59:49

are going to facilitate so do reach out to us um you know you'll get an email tomorrow with a bit of a link to to to

59:56

reach out to us on it but do reach out to us if you think there's a need in your business to brief your people and leaders client facing people Etc uh

1:00:04

because you do need to be experts in this stuff actually which is difficult as it keeps moving uh and we'll build a

1:00:09

bit of a community around it maybe let's see if it gets kicked into the long grass again we'll probably have to do

1:00:15

another one of these in six months time Gemma it's always a do do reach out and um have a great

1:00:23

weend everybody uh we'll see you next time thanks very much Gemma thank you thank you everybody see

1:00:30

you next time