Hampshire County Council Buildings, Land and Procurement Panel Item 19 October 2004 Corporate Procurement - Progress Report Report by the Director of Property, Business and Regulatory Services

Contact: Neil Jones Ext: 6180 email: [email protected]

How the conclusion in this report fits with the Corporate Strategy This scheme will impact on the delivery of the following Corporate Aims: Aim 3 - achieving economic prosperity: by promoting a strategic approach to procurement Aim 5 - improving services: through improved resource management Aim 6 - developing councillors and staff: by developing procurement skills, particularly for staff
1	Summary
1.1	At its meeting in May 2004, the Panel received a progress report on the Corporate Procurement Agenda. The purpose of this report is to provide a further update on key items in the actions plan and to raise issues relating to the search for procurement savings and the external review of the County Council's procurement arrangements.
2	Procurement Action Plan
2.1	The Corporate Procurement Network continues to review progress against the Council's own procurement action plan and the milestones contained in the National Procurement Strategy for Local Government (NPSLG). Funding to support these activities has continued to be drawn mainly from the trading account of County Supplies, but funds were recently allocated by the e-Government and ICT Steering Group to accelerate progress on the implementation of the e-procurement strategy.
2.2	The role of the purchasing, contracts and procurement development sections at County Supplies has evolved steadily over the last two years in line with the Council's need to develop an overview of its procurement arrangements and co-ordinate its response to the national procurement agenda. It is intended that the current activities will be developed further into a Corporate Procurement Unit over the coming months.
	NPSLG Milestones and Checkpoints
2.3	Good progress is being made against the ten milestones for 2004, although work still needs to be drawn to a formal conclusion in several areas in order for these actions to be completed. A summary statement of the Council's position in relation to all the milestones and key issues identified in the NPSLG is included at Appendix 1 for the information of the Panel. More work needs to be undertaken with departmental representatives to document the evidence that the County Council is achieving the recommended standards of practice. This will be undertaken with members of the Corporate Procurement Network over the coming months. One area in which such information needs to be captured is the link between procurement activity and the delivery of the Council's key aims. In practical terms, the contribution of procurement is closely tied to the wider service plans of departments, which address these issues, but a workshop is planned to draw these strands together into a single statement to meet the requirements of the NPSLG.
	Developing Commercial Awareness and Skills
2.4	The `Procurement Overview' courses referred to in a previous report to the Panel have now been delivered to over 300 staff. Feedback has generally been very positive and further courses are planned for the next six months. More detailed events covering Contract and Supplier Management, Negotiation Skills, Partnership Working and Specification Writing and Bid Evaluation have been commissioned from an organisation that has extensive experience of working with local government. These events will be advertised to the relevant staff and in order to encourage participation, the funding for these sessions will be provided by PBRS (County Supplies). The work by the Hampshire Learning Centre to create an e-learning package for procurement is beginning to bear fruit and the initial results appear promising.
	Analysis of Supplier Payments
2.5	A detailed analysis of the County Council's payments has been undertaken by Spikes Cavell Limited and this was reported to the Panel in May. The payments made for capital projects by the Environment Department and Property Services have also been analysed and this data will now be combined with the earlier work to create a complete summary for the whole of the County Council.
	Published Information
2.6	The `How to do Business' guide that is intended for suppliers has been prepared and is currently being reviewed by the Plain English Commission. The final stage before publication on Hantsweb will be to invite comments from a small number of local businesses. Departments are continuing to provide updated schedules of forthcoming contract opportunities to the procurement development team, but these have not yet been published on the Council's website.
	SAP Electronic Catalogue (EBP)
2.7	The volume of purchasing through EBP continues to grow and over the first five months of the current financial year, orders with a value of £88 million were raised. This is already nearly three times the value of orders raised in the whole of 2003/04 and this represents a very high level of activity in comparison to many other implementations across the country. Work is continuing to develop full electronic links with key trading partners and this has been facilitated by the recent appointment of an e-Procurement Project Officer.
2.8	However, the value of orders raised within EBP has been artificially boosted because Social Services are routing purchases through this channel prior to the implementation of the relevant facilities within the SWIFT system. This means that it will be another twelve months before the base work load of EBP becomes clear. However, it is already apparent that several issues will need to be addressed. The most important of these is that recommended arrangements or suppliers included under a formal contract probably account for less than 50% of expenditure. Although much work has been done to remove unnecessary duplication, it has been necessary to include a wide range of suppliers to meet the operational requirements of departments. Work to rationalise the catalogue and to increase the pre-tendered content will continue.
	Contract for the Provision of Agency Staff
2.9	Social Services' units have migrated quickly to the new arrangements with Manpower and over 4,000 staff shifts were filled during July and August. This number represents a success rate of around 94%. A range of problems have been experienced by unit managers and these are still being addressed with Manpower, but a major change has been implemented and there are considerable grounds to regard the start of this contract as a success.
2.10	The number of bookings for administration and clerical staff over the same period has been surprisingly low at around 120 placements. This may reflect a low demand for additional workers over the summer, but there is some evidence that the new arrangements have not been adopted by some sections. This information has been shared with the Corporate Procurement Network and it is expected that the use of agencies other than Manpower will now be phased out rapidly.
	External Collaboration
2.11	The nine Regional Centres of Procurement Excellence (CoPE) have continued to develop and most have now appointed a Director to lead activities on behalf of the management board and host authority. The Director of Property, Business and Regulatory Services is leading the Council's engagement with this initiative and has been invited to create an action plan for construction across the south-east.

2.12	It will be difficult for staff in the CoPE to build strong individual relationships with representatives in all 74 local authorities in the south-east region. One possible approach to deal with this problem would be to develop a stronger role for local networks based on county areas. In Hampshire, this would probably mean the Local Authorities Supplies Group, which functions under the HIOWA umbrella. This group meets every 3-4 months and is currently chaired by a manager from the County Council. The pattern of collaborative activity has been static for some time and a new external agenda may well prove beneficial to this group.
3	The Gershon `Efficiency' Review - July 2004
3.1	Members will be aware of the paper, `Releasing resources to the front line' that was published in July. The report indicates that annual efficiency gains of more than £20 billion can be achieved in the public sector by 2007/08 with £6.45 billion expected from local government in England. As is usual, there is an active debate about the credibility of the savings identified in the report and about the split between `cashable' and `non-cashable' savings (the latter being often referred to as value-for-money improvements).
3.2	The County Treasurer has evaluated the impact of the Spending Review and the recommendations of the Gershon report and will address the issues raised for the Council in the strategy papers prepared for the forthcoming budget process. It is sufficient to record here that the efficiency targets reflect a combination of recommendations on: · financial management · procurement · modernising transactional services · delivery of efficiency and for local government the report indicates that: · 40 per cent of the savings are expected to be delivered through schools · 10 per cent through policing · 35 per cent through procurement in other services (for example, adult social care, social housing, children's services, highways maintenance and waste) · further savings are expected through increased rationalisation of local authority back office functions and transactional services and improvements in productive time of staff.
3.3	A summary of Gershon's proposed improvements prepared by the Commissioning Joint Committee is included at Appendix 2 for the information of the Panel. It is widely believed that very significant problems will have to be overcome to evaluate the impact of many of these items and to quantify the savings that may be achieved.

	`Savings Agenda' for Hampshire County Council
3.4	Much of the work of the Corporate Procurement Network has so far been concerned with producing a corporate procurement strategy and ensuring that the County Council is well placed in relation to the NPSLG. Both Gershon and the NPSLG anticipate that procurement performance will improve if there is a better strategic approach to the supply sector and greater professionalism within the procurement function through shared procurements or enhanced skills. These statements are undoubtedly true, but they are not the basis for a forecast of the savings that might accrue to the County Council, nor whether these will be `cashable' or `non-cashable'.
3.5	The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) routinely uses the phrase `value-for-money gains' to reflect the fact that many savings are non-cashable. It is interesting to note that the OGC expects half of the total gains expected in their current plans to come from the wider use of the Gateway Review process. This requires independent assessment of projects and programmes at key points in their life-cycles and will generally provide a focus on the avoidance of unnecessary cost. This demonstrates the fact that in any discussion of savings, it will always be necessary for there to be a clear understanding of definitions, methods of measurement, treatment of inflation and baseline information.
3.6	Without an agreed means to record savings, it is difficult to evaluate and report on the Council's existing achievements. Examples include: · the benefits of the Council's involvement in the Central Buying Consortium - market movements and joint contracts have made the Council at least £1 million better off each year through savings in areas such as copying equipment, mobile phones and office papers. · the absence of annual price increases on goods issued through the County Supplies warehouse for several years - internal issues are around £5 million and an increase of 2.5% each year would have pushed annual charges up by £385,000 after three years · the savings achieved through the introduction of the corporate contract for agency staff.
3.7	In the event that new targets are set for departments in the Council's budgets for 2005/06 and later, it will be necessary for departments to consider what contribution can be made from their expenditure on goods and services. There is some potential for these savings to be explored on a corporate basis and a number of possible sources are identified in the following paragraphs.
3.8	The Corporate Procurement Network has identified a number of areas of expenditure that could be the subject of new corporate contracts. Current expenditure in these areas is over £2 million and it would be reasonable to anticipate an average improvement of around 5% or £100,000 when new arrangements are established.

3.9	A 1% reduction in the margin paid to Manpower has already been agreed for the second and third years of the agency staff contract. On a like-for-like basis, this will save the County Council around £45,000 each year, although it must be pointed out that the Council would save considerably more if it were able to reduce its use of agency workers.
3.10	Purchasing and contracts activity is currently undertaken by a very mixed group of front line and specialist staff. The Council can reasonably claim that this approach is generally effective by virtue of the independent assessments of corporate performance, but the Council has no obvious means by which to judge whether this work could be re-organised to achieve a greater level of professionalism, better results or to utilise less resources. A review of procurement structures and processes would be a major undertaking and is identified later in this report as a key option for the review to be undertaken by external procurement consultants.
3.11	As previously mentioned, there is evidence that a substantial volume of expenditure through the Council's electronic catalogue is directed to non-contracted suppliers. There is clearly scope to increase the proportion of spend directed to pre-contracted arrangements and this should have the dual impact of reducing sourcing activity within departments (freeing time) and improving value-for-money (through aggregation and by eliminating the variation that can exist in the terms agreed for similar goods or services). There may also be scope to introduce more standardisation into some areas of purchasing where decisions are currently made by individual budget holders.
3.12	E-procurement has not developed in the UK as rapidly as was being predicted 3-4 years ago, but there are still promising projects in the areas of e-invoicing, e-tendering, payment on receipt and procurement cards embedded into purchasing systems. Many of these projects are resource hungry and require initial investment, but they are increasingly common and offer the possibility of streamlining basic transactional processes. Invoice processing is decentralised, but the Council deals with approximately 500,000 invoices each year. Leading suppliers of e-invoicing systems suggest that receiving 40% of these electronically would release clerical time equivalent to around 20 full time staff.
3.13	In addition to the conventional savings that may be achieved when contracts are repackaged or retendered, it would appear that some authorities currently count the `savings' that arise when project costs are lower than budget estimates and those when suppliers' aspirations for higher charges are successfully resisted (as in the residential care sector). Once again, this highlights the need for a shared understanding of definitions and the means by which targets are achieved. The treatment of these items will need to be considered as part of the Council's response to the efficiency targets.

3.14	Considerable time has been taken in this section to explore and illustrate the issues. The Director of Property, Business and Regulatory Services and the County Treasurer will be reporting further on a framework as part of the preparation for the next year's budget.
4	Performance Management
4.1	The NPSLG requires authorities to arrange an independent health check of procurement strategy and performance by the end of 2005. The IDeA offers this service, but Members will recall that the Council intends to engage consultants to undertake a review of procurement arrangements and it is expected that this work will also fulfil the requirements of the NPSLG.
4.2	The Corporate Procurement Network has continued to discuss the format and content of the review, but a stage has not been reached where firm proposals and quotations can be obtained. There is general agreement about the purpose of the review, which will be to: · evaluate performance and highlight existing strengths and weaknesses · identify key issues both within the County Council and in key supply markets and suggest practical approaches to deal with these · review existing action plans to update priorities and ensure a focus on performance improvement · ensure that procurement arrangements are consistent with the County Council's ambition to provide excellent services to the public and achieve top quartile performance against public and private sector comparators
4.3	In the light of the developing `savings' issue, it is also proposed that the review should produce detailed recommendations that will result in genuine improvements in economy, efficiency and effectiveness.
4.4	The review will need to consider: · corporate and departmental procurement strategies · the organisation of procurement (both the people and the structure) · systems and processes · spend analysis and contract strategies in key areas of expenditure · market developments and the management of supplier relationships.
	However, the key requirement is that the review should have an enduring impact and that the improvement plan has the genuine capacity to raise the level of the County Council's performance.
4.5	In reality, this represents a very ambitious agenda and there is a strong possibility that all these elements will not be achieved within the provisional budget which has been set at £25-30,000. As these discussions progress, the over-riding factor in any trade-off between the scope of the review and its cost will be a judgement about the effect of any decision on the value of the final recommendations that will be produced.
4.6	The project will be managed between January and April 2005 by the Head of Contracts at County Supplies on a part-time basis with the intention that the outcomes will be reported to the Panel as soon as possible next year. It would be helpful if the Panel could recommend the nomination of a Member to participate in the scoping exercise and in the completion of this project.
5	Conclusion
5.1	Progress continues to be made against the action plan linked to the Corporate Procurement Strategy and against the milestones contained in the National Procurement Strategy for Local Government. On the national scene, the Regional Centres of Excellence are becoming more established, but in time would have a major impact on the procurement arrangements of local authorities.
5.2	The outline of a savings agenda for procurement has been developed, but this will need to be revised and extended in conjunction with departments as the budget strategy for 2005/06 and subsequent years is established. The Gershon report has raised considerable expectations in respect of efficiency and procurement savings, but the mechanisms identified to release these need to be developed into a corporate framework.
5.3	Preparations for a review of the Council's procurement arrangements by external consultants have advanced. It is expected that the work will be completed by April 2005.

Recommendation(s)
That the Buildings, Land and Procurement Panel advises the Executive Member for Policy and Resources that:
1	The work to establish an overview of procurement within the County Council and to implement a corporate improvement plan be approved.
2	The wide range of procurement savings that have been and will continue to be made, is closely linked to the County Council's budget strategy.
3	A Panel Member is nominated to participate in the proposed review of corporate procurement performance and organisation.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background papers

The following documents disclose facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and has been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

NB the list excludes:

1 Published works

2 Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act

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BLPP1004I

Appendix 1

Hampshire County Council - Position Statement against the National Procurement Strategy Milestones and Checkpoints

National Procurement Strategy Checkpoints	HCC Actions
Policy
What further information do you need to review and improve procurement in your council?	Portfolio Analysis completed based on analysis completed by the Corporate Procurement Network. Summary and Detailed supplier analysis and list of key suppliers completed. Improved management information on vendors, spend and types of purchase will be available via EBP & SAP (full year effect from end of 2005/6). Need to ensure that purchasing not covered by EBP/SAP provides adequate management information or integration to SAP.
Who will lead a review of procurement in your council?	Review led by Corporate Procurement Network using external consultants.
Which other councils can you partner with to help improve procurement regionally?	Already involved with Central Buying Consortium. Involvement and support for the Regional Centre of Excellence, including two Board members and leading the Regional Construction Procurement Strand. Already work with some District Councils and Fire & Rescue Service on some common use goods and services. Further collaboration and partnering is being explored and developed.
What target for % efficiency savings will you adopt for your council's procurement?	SAP benefits realisation target of £500,000 per annum. Further savings being identified.
Providing Leadership & Building Capacity
Milestones 2004: · Corporate Strategy developed, owned by chief executives, members and senior officers	· Achieved: Corporate Strategy developed, owned by chief executives, members and senior officers
· Strategy's implementation regularly measured	Reviewed at each Corporate Procurement Network meeting and regular reports to Corporate Management Team and Buildings, Land and Procurement Panel. Key Performance Indicators also being developed

Milestones 2005: · Health Check against National Strategy	· Review of procurement, including health check currently being planned.
· Centres of Excellence involved	· Fully supporting the SE Regional Centre of Procurement Excellence. Two representatives on the Board and the County Council is leading the regional Construction Procurement strand.
Have procurement champions been identified on the executive and the corporate management team?	Yes, Leader and Andrew Smith (Director of Property, Business and Regulatory Services)
Does the council have a corporate strategy that is clearly aligned with the council's strategic objectives?	The Corporate Procurement Strategy identifies links to Corporate Objectives. Further work is underway to refine the contribution of procurement to corporate objectives.
Is it policy and practice to award contracts on best value for money, rather than the lowest price option?	Yes, Best Value approach undertaken with evaluation criteria set for each tendering exercise.
Is there effective executive and scrutiny member involvement in procurement?	New role of Buildings, Land and Procurement Panel from January 2004.
Is there a centre of expertise in procurement and project management?	Yes, Corporate Procurement Unit and relevant departmental procurement teams, supported by the Consultancy Unit in the County Treasurer's department on project management.
Have members and officers been trained in relevant procurement skills?	A Procurement training programme is being developed and delivered.
Is there a strategy to prevent fraud and corruption and maintain ethical standards?	Yes, procedures and monitoring in place through contract standing orders, contract practice notes, system controls and internal audit review.
Does the council publish a forward procurement plan and Selling to the Council Guide available on a website?	Guide, website and published forward procurement plan being developed.
Does the Council have a corporate contracts register	Chief Executive's database for contracts over £75,000, work is underway to improve the reporting capability of the system. Proposals for a Corporate Tendering and Contracts System being discussed.

Has clear, user-friendly procurement guidance been disseminated to staff?	Yes, Purchasing: A brief guide for staff issued to all relevant staff to support more detailed guidance contained in the Corporate Procurement web pages.
Has the council developed guidance on procurement project management?	Included in Action Plan - to form part of Procurement Best Practice Guide
Is the council committed to planning and resourcing procurement projects effectively?
Partnering & Collaboration
Milestones 2004: · Approach to partnering in construction and service delivery set out	· Partnership sub-group established
· Approach to collaboration and new trading powers set out	· Approach to be developed by the Corp. Procurement Network
· Appraisal of service delivery models included in Best Value reviews	· Guidance being reviewed
Milestones 2005: · Average time from OJEU notice to award reduced by 10%
· All councils co-operating regionally via networks of centres of excellence	· Fully supporting the SE Regional Centre of Procurement Excellence. Two representatives on the Board and the County Council is leading the regional Construction Procurement strand.
Milestones 2006: · Average time from OJEU notice to award reduced by 25%
How does the council's corporate procurement strategy encourage and identify opportunities for partnering, collaboration and, where applicable, trading?	Included in action plan - sub-groups established
Does the council proactively seek out partnering and collaboration opportunities to improve service delivery and projects?	Included in action plan - sub-groups established

Does the council have the capacity, skills and knowledge (both for members and officers) to develop and implement an effective partnering and collaboration strategy within the framework of the procurement strategy?
Are you satisfied you have effective partnership monitoring arrangements in place?
Are you satisfied that your existing partnership and collaborative procurement arrangements are contributing to your wider community plans?
How does your corporate procurement strategy reflect the opportunities for identifying other councils that may deliver services for you or with you under the trading powers?
Is the preparation of business cases part of the council's culture?
Are there barriers preventing effective partnering, collaboration or trading?
Do you let council-wide contracts and framework agreements to make the most of your buying power?	Yes, currently c£70m per annum. New areas being identified and implemented.
Are your contracts and framework agreements open to all councils and public sector partners that might want to use them?	To a certain extent, but there is potential for more development in this area - see partnership sub-group.
Have you considered how best to integrate Gateway Reviews into your corporate procurement strategy?

Doing Business Electronically
Milestones 2005: · Appropriate e-Procurement solution implemented	· Underway, being rolled out to staff and suppliers. See: Corporate e-Procurement Strategy and: Electronic Goods and Services catalogue
· Using government procurement card / equivalent for low value purchases	· Review undertaken, benefits not substantial enough to implement at this time. The County Council will focus efforts on the EBP/SAP rollout and developing and improving its electronic catalogue of goods and services.
Milestones 2006: · Accessing an appropriate e-Marketplace	· Internal marketplace established. External marketplaces under consideration with the Hampshire and IoW e-Government Partnership and with the Central Buying Consortium.
Does the council have e-Procurement within the corporate procurement strategy?	Yes, part of Corporate Procurement Strategy action plan and separate Corporate e-Procurement Strategy published.
Has the council reviewed and redesigned all the current procure-to-pay processes?	Yes, as part of the SAP implementation, but processes will be kept under review, especially to ensure cost-effective mechanisms for ad-hoc, low value purchases.
Which elements of e-Procurement are required by the council? Select only those modules which offer the best value for money.	Requirements identified and being implemented or reviewed as contained in the Corporate e-Procurement Strategy.
How will the council integrate e-Procurement with financial, HR or other IT systems?	Integrated ERP system (SAP) implemented.
Will the council's current IT architecture support its users procuring goods and services across the internet?	Yes, by using the County Council's electronic goods and services catalogue.
Will the council develop the solution in-house or source it externally?	Externally sourced, but internally managed.
Has the council learnt from the experience of other councils, especially those of a similar size?	Yes, via Central Buying Consortium's E-Procurement Group, National e-Procurement Project guidance, case studies and events, SAP Public Sector User Group and informal networks.

Does the council have a supplier adoption strategy and does it intend to support the local business community?	Yes, covered by the e-Procurement Strategy. Corporate Funding agreed to take forward the agreed e-procurement strategy, some of which will be used to support local businesses and SMEs in undertaking e-procurement.
Does the council have the resource and skills to decide the best design of e-Procurement solution for its needs?	Yes.
Does the council have resource and skills to deliver e-Procurement projects successfully?	Yes.
Stimulating Markets & Achieving Community Benefits
Milestones 2004: · Staff consulted on employment issues in procurement processes and contracts
· 2003 Act and 03/2003 Circular built into processes and contracts
· Publish a Selling to the Council Guide (website)
· Ensure corporate procurement strategy is addressing sustainability and equality issues, helps to achieve the community plan and involves the voluntary sector
· Conclude a compact with the local voluntary and community sectors	· Compact developed and in place
Milestones 2005: · Relationship of procurement to community plan addressed
· Workforce diversity, equality and sustainability issues addressed

· Diverse and competitive supply market encouraged
· Sustainability built into procurement strategy, processes and contracts
· Concordat for SMEs and voluntary sector compact concluded	· Compact developed and in place
· Information Memorandum to prospective bidders included in processes
· Invitation to bidders to demonstrate effective use of supply chain included
· Give bidders option to specify benefits under community plan
How do suppliers view the council?	Future survey of suppliers included in action plan
How does the council market itself to suppliers?	Development of website and leaflet underway
Has the council published a "Selling to the Council" guide on its website?	Underway
What steps has the council taken to encourage small firms, ethnic minority businesses, social enterprises and voluntary and community sector suppliers to bid for council contracts?
Has the council entered into a voluntary sector compact?	Compact developed and in place
Does the council have a sustainable design or sustainable procurement strategy?	Green Buying Guide Published. Other elements to be included in Best Practice Guide
Is the council complying with the 2003 Act and circular 03/2003 on staff consultation and employment issues in procurement?	Guidance note issued by Legal Practice

Does the council award contracts on the basis of whole life costs and benefits?
What steps does the council take to use its buying power to improve design quality?
How is the council complying with the amended Race Relations Act 1976, Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 and CRE procurement guidance?
How do diversity and equalities issues feature in procurement?
How does the council achieve its community plan objectives through procurement?

Appendix 2

CJC Summary of the Gershon `Reforms'

a emphasis on asset management and estate rationalisation (Para 1.8)

b activity based costing (1.9.5)

c off the shelf corporate policies which work across the organisation (2.7.1)

d simplification, standardisation and sharing of transactional support services (2.7.3) including with other external service users (1.9.3)

e active sick absence management (2.7.2)

f best value strategic sourcing (2.7.2)

g migrating particular customer segments to new channels (2.15.2)

h restructuring internal processes to reduce time spent on paper handling, data entry and correction (2.15.2)

i enhancing productive time by providing bursars, administrative assistants and classroom assistants in schools, and similar developments in the police (2.24.1)

j realising the benefits of ICT to modernise the delivery of services in police and schools (2.24.2)

k The Home Office, with ACPO, to increase time spent on front-line policing by maximising the effective use of support staff (3.19.1)

l DfES to enable front-line professionals in schools, colleges and higher education to use time more productively through ICT (3.19.2)

m increased usage of financial benchmarking information and dissemination of best practice in schools (3.21)

n pursuing improvements in the vfm of all procurement of external professional services, ensuring that costs are scored against administration budgets by putting in place strong controls on the engagement of external service providers, and ensuring public visibility of expenditure on these services (3.24)

o e-enabled channels for contact with the public (1.9.4)

p e-auctions (1.9.6)

q Gateway reviews of projects and programmes (2.26.2)

r ensuring all procurement is conducted either via a process (for example a framework agreement, catalogue, or procurement card) that has been put in place by a procurement professional, or has the direct support of procurement professionals (3.25.iv)

s achieving high take-up of e-enabled transactional services by appropriate customer groups (3.26)

t improved DEFRA approach to waste collection and disposal (3.12.1)

u DoH to lead on developing new ways to collaborate with the suppliers of social care services to improve efficiency and service delivery, following the principles of the Kelly Report (3.12.2)

v ODPM to roll out a national network of local collective purchasing consortia, for repairs to social housing, based on the Fusion 21 model (3.13)

w DfT to lead improvement of roads procurement using Highways Agency expertise (3.14)

x reducing cross-organisational duplication eg in relation to payment of housing benefits (2.15.3)

y reducing multiplicity of contacts between one individual and different government agencies (2.15.3)