Members considered the report of the Chief Finance Officer detailing the annual review of the Council’s Procurement Strategy.  The Strategy was approved by Cabinet in December 2020.

In 2020/21 the Council spent £22.56m on goods, works and services.  The Council used the services of the East Sussex Procurement Hub (ESPH) which was hosted by Wealden District Council. It was a three-way partnership including Hastings Borough Council, although the Hub did undertake wider joint procurements across East Sussex and beyond where there was an economic/market advantage in procuring together.

The Procurement Strategy had been developed using the Procurement Strategy for Local Government in England 2018 toolkit as its basis. It explained how the Council would continue to develop and benefit from the professional expertise of the ESPH and the systems employed to make sure that the Council delivered value for money.

Attached at Appendix A to the report was a review of the performance in 2021 against 18 key measures identified and detailed actions for the following 12 months against each target and an advisor from the ESPH led Members through these measures, highlighting the salient points. Members acknowledged that progress in some areas had been restricted due to the pandemic and this was reflected in the targets of the action plan outlined for 2022.

The key areas for development over the coming year were to be the production of the Council’s Social Value Policy, which would focus the procurement approaches to Climate Change and social wellbeing.  The Government had also confirmed that their Transform Public Procurement agenda would see changes to legislation early in 2023 and was likely to contain more stringent transparency reporting requirements.

A Contract Management Training model was being developed to ensure Contract Management was a core competency for Rother staff.  Training was to form part of the induction and appraisal process and refresher programmes would be available to staff involved with contracts in the spring.

Member involvement was crucial if delivering the aims of the strategy were to be achieved in the future and Cabinet was therefore requested to nominate a Lead Member with responsibility for Procurement and Social Value Policy.

The annual review of the Council’s Procurement Strategy highlighted the developments that had been made in the first year after adoption and identified actions that needed to be undertaken in the coming year to meet policy and legislative requirements. The Procurement Strategy gave officers and Members a sound basis for procurement decisions.

RESOLVED: That:

1)         the annual review of the Procurement Strategy in Appendix A to the report be noted; and

2)         Councillor K.P. Dixon be appointed Lead Member for Procurement and Social Value Policy.