Hampshire County Council

Buildings, Land and Procurement Panel Item *

24 June 2007

Corporate Procurement - Update

Report by the Director of Property, Business and Regulatory Services

1

Summary

1.1

A progress report on corporate procurement initiatives was presented to the Panel on 23 January 2007. This included a summary of the progress made against the milestones in the National Procurement Strategy for Local Government, a schedule of cashable and non-cashable savings secured in 2006/7, and details of the 2006 supplier satisfaction survey. This report provides a further commentary on activity, including the programme of reviews with departments, a first draft of the 2007/8 savings schedule and the currently available data for a range of local performance indicators for procurement.

1.2

The report also refers to the intention to extend the Council's current contracts for the supply of electricity to large and quarterly-billed sites as provided for during the original tendering exercises conducted in 2006.

1.3

This report does not link directly to the Corporate Strategy but, nevertheless, requires a decision as it has a positive impact on the management of the Council's resources and on the local economy, by promoting a strategic approach to procurement, and by developing the procurement skills of staff.

Recommendations

That the Buildings, Land and Procurement Panel advises the Executive Member for Policy and Resources that approval be given to:

1. The corporate improvement programme for procurement.

2. The action taken to extend the contracts for electricity with the

existing suppliers for large and quarterly-billed sites.

3. The Director of Property, Business & Regulatory Services being
authorised to conclude contracts for the supply of gas.

2

National Agenda

e-Procurement Initiatives

2.1

The "virtual" procurement card used by HC3S with its largest supplier, 3663, continues to operate successfully and consultation with providers regarding the domiciliary care procurement card project is on-going. A joint working party has been established with the Hampshire Domiciliary Care Association as part of the preparations. A number of County Councillors have been approached directly by providers and the Corporate Procurement team have dealt with enquiries from three Members so far. Both the South East Centre of Excellence (SECE) and the Office of Government Commerce continue to be very interested in the project with SECE providing funding of £15,000 for the work undertaken so far. Any implementation is unlikely to take place before April 2008.

2.2

Use of the e-tendering system purchased in collaboration with other members of the Central Buying Consortium (CBC) by the two teams piloting this approach continues to grow and fourteen tenders have been added to In-Tend since January 2007.

2.3

The direct electronic ordering link to Dell and Supplies Team from within the Council's electronic catalogue, EBP, has been delayed for some months, but is now planned to go live in Education ICT (EdICT) during June. This phase of the project will run for several months before the facility is made available to the rest of the County Council.

2.4

Management of the electronic catalogue continues to be a significant task and non-contracted, non-approved vendors are being reviewed and removed where they are not being used or conflict with new corporate contracts. A major upgrade of EBP is planned by IT Services and this will present opportunities for enhanced functionality and improved usability.

2.5

Work has not yet started on a local implementation of the SECE Business Portal which appears suitable as a means of creating a single corporate database of contracts. Adult Services do not currently have such a system in place and current thinking is that this department will be the first to adopt the portal.

2.6

The public `tendering opportunities' website has been updated to show tenders that are due to be issued by Corporate Procurement and County Supplies during the next 18 months. The website now includes all tenders and not just those over £75,000.

2.7

A tender process is underway to meet County Supplies' requirement for an internet catalogue for external customers. Winchester City Council, Hampshire Constabulary and Sparsholt College have already agreed to assist with testing when the product has been selected.

Capacity Building

2.8

In support of the principles of `The Small Business Friendly Concordat', representatives from the Procurement Development team were on hand at the recent `Business South 2007 - Meet the Buyer' event to answer queries from local businesses about the County Council's tendering processes. In recognition of the Council's efforts to support small businesses through its procurement processes, the County Council was awarded a certificate of excellence by the Federation of Small Businesses in February of this year.

Collaboration

2.11

It has been previously reported that various national bodies are working to encourage collaboration between public sector procurement teams. With regard to commodity goods and services, this is progressing relatively slowly in the south-east, but good work is being done to bring together the CBC and the Eastern Shires Purchasing Organisation. A number of joint contracts have been put in place and work is in progress on more. While the scope for further cashable savings is currently unproven, this work is expected to yield hard financial benefits as well as efficiency gains.

2.12

Of the eight districts that have agreed to participate in the Hampshire Marketplace, five are now live with pilot departments or have progressed to rolling out the system to additional users. The live districts are Basingstoke and Deane, East Hampshire, Gosport, Fareham and New Forest. Work will be put in hand to `capture' the other districts.

2.13

Over 130 fully compliant contracts have been added by the County Council to the Marketplace for districts to access while the districts have together added a total of approximately 100 local suppliers. Key performance indicators have now been agreed by the Steering Group and data collection has commenced. A number of collaborative initiatives are underway and these are being supported by the Marketplace Co-ordinator hosted by the Procurement Development team. This project is now widely seen as a forerunner to some form of procurement shared service within Hampshire and the formal research into this is now being led by a member of East Hampshire District Council's management team.

2.14

Further evidence of growing interest in the collaborative agenda is provided by the following examples. After a successful involvement in the delivery of the fixtures and equipment for the new Mary Rose School in Portsmouth, the team has been approached by the new Springwell School (Southampton City Council) to manage their requirements. This complements the work being done with Property Services in support of several projects delivered through the SECE framework contracts. Southampton City Council, Eastleigh Borough Council and Winchester City Council are all currently in discussions with Corporate Procurement and County Supplies regarding their requirements for photocopying equipment, which in aggregate amount to around 200 machines and a financial commitment of several hundred thousand pounds.

3.

3.1

Improvement Plans

Savings and Efficiency

3.1.1

The initial review of savings for 2007/08 seems positive at this early stage in the year with an estimate of £545,000 cashable savings already identified for departments (against a target of £500,000) from corporately made contracts and £560,000 non-cashable savings (target £500,000). Cashable savings for schools are estimated at £132,000. Appendix 1 gives the detail behind these figures.

3.1.2

These forecasts make no allowance for the additional savings that can be expected to result from the lower market prices for energy (gas and electricity) contracts when these are renegotiated or re-tendered in advance of their anniversary dates later in the year. With regards to electricity, the opportunity exists to extend the contracts for both the large sites (approximate value £5million pa with over half of this spent by external customers) and the quarterly accounts (approximate value £2.25million pa) for any period up to 2010. The other options are to:

· re-tender the County's requirements and those of our external customers independently 

· look to establish a wider collaborative arrangement

· explore an approach which allows some ongoing exposure to the market by not committing to an annual price fixed in advance.

3.1.3

The final option would be preferred if the price trend established over the last year continues and month-ahead prices are soft, but this is by no means certain. It must be noted that the current year-ahead prices for energy are actually lower than the month-ahead prices quoted at an equivalent time last year.  There is no way to 'know' which option will produce the best result, but the current suppliers are offering extension prices that will reduce costs by an average of around 15% for the large sites and approaching 10% for the small sites.

3.1.4

As the costs of distribution, billing, administration and profit are not subject to the falls that have taken place in the energy markets, we can be confident that the suppliers' quotes are based on substantial reductions in the energy costs, which as a rule-of-thumb are regarded as about 70% of the total bill. Other things being equal, these reductions would deliver a saving of around £970,000 for all customers on the contracts (perhaps £550,000 for the Council's sites) over current costs in the 12 months from October.  For the large sites, informal price comparisons indicate that the prices offered are broadly in line with tenders currently being received by Kent County Council. Consequently, one year extensions to the existing contracts for large sites and quarterly billed sites have been agreed with the suppliers, Scottish & Southern and E.ON. Discussions over the availability of green electricity for large sites are approaching a conclusion and it is expected that a total premium of around £25,000 will apply.

3.1.5

The Council is participating in a CBC tender to satisfy its purchases of gas (around £7.5 million at current prices) and bids are expected to be returned towards the end of July. It is expected that the lowest overall tender will be accepted for the Council's sites and it will be important for the County Council to be in a position to commit to the results of the tender exercise quickly. Therefore, it is proposed that the Panel should advise the Executive Member for Policy and Resources that authority be given to the Director of Property, Business and Regulatory Services to conclude contracts for the supply of gas.

3.2

Corporate Procurement Strategy and environment

3.2.1

Progress on the action plans identified in the strategy document approved by members last year continues to be made, albeit slowly in some areas. In particular, work to develop proposals for a corporate Gateway Review process has been delayed by the level of support that has been provided to departments over the last six months and the priority that this work has been given. Experience of the Gateway process continues to be gained within the Environment and Property teams where a number of projects are managed using this technique. There is some anecdotal evidence that take-up of this technique has not been as rapid as the Office of Government Commerce would like and contact with 4Ps suggests that this organisation is interested in working with the Council to establish and run a programme of reviews. These initial investigations will be pursued to see whether this is feasible.

3.2.2

The wide range of financial and service pressures faced by the County Council are common to many local authorities. A limited comparison between the efficiency plans of other local authorities and the Council's own budget reports and corporate review programme (managed by the Corporate Performance and Efficiency Group) shows a high degree of overlap. Examples include:

· the strategic review of property

· re-balancing the internal/external provision of Home Care services

· restructuring to reduce overheads and streamline processes

· market management in areas of escalating costs such as high cost

placements for children and adults, waste and construction

· Transformation Through Technology

· procurement initiatives to address areas of expenditure such as

agency staff and Home To School transport

3.2.3

The scale of the change agenda is already very significant, but it is in this environment that CSR07 is expected to demand significant growth in shared services. The DCLG also continues to promote its series of publications on Rethinking Service Delivery (with its guidance on various forms of public/public partnerships). It is now relatively common for authorities to initiate some form of fundamental service review to identify opportunities for further efficiencies and to provide an effective challenge to the status quo and to question service provision and costs. The County Council is shortly to embark on such a review using external consultants reflecting a desire to get as much as possible out of the various strands of work on efficiencies, including the corporate procurement review programme.

3.2.4

Over the winter, all departmental management teams were briefed on the new Corporate Procurement Strategy and on the review programme. A number of points of agreement emerged from these discussions:

· the creation of a corporate procurement team and the CPN have

delivered benefits in terms of cohesion, procurement developments and the efficiency agenda and these should be carried forward

· there is strong support for the principle of a procurement review

programme and departments like the current process (review,

recommend, assist and move-on)

· there is a preference that savings targets for procurement should be

within the framework of the overall budget strategy

· there is room for stronger leadership in terms of procurement

standards and common processes

· there is support for the concept of a formal Gateway review process

to build on the initial work undertaken within Environment and Property Services and for this to be used as a vehicle to enhance the contribution of procurement to the delivery of corporate objectives (on sustainability, community benefits etc)

· the availability of an ad hoc procurement support service to those

departments with no full-time procurement staff is valuable and this team approach could be formalised

3.2.5

It seems likely that there will be a strong `voluntary' demand for projects to be run as part of the procurement review programme for the next 2-3 years. This demand is most evident in Adult Services and Children's Services and there are some signs that there could be some tension around the Council's capacity to deliver and implement these reviews at a rate that will meet the aspirations of these departments. Management of the review programme and a decision about whether there is a need to adopt a timetable for the review of all categories of procurement are key issues to be considered.

3.2.6

The CPN has operated successfully over the last four years with a good record and a programme of procurement reviews has been established. Without any changes the CPN will continue to work on delivery of the strategy and will have a substantial action plan. However, the current model is not completely addressing issues around:

· setting and monitoring corporate standards for procurement activity

· the organisational arrangements for `corporate procurement'

· the systematic introduction of greater challenge to existing

approaches

· specific targets for the implementation of fully electronic processes

and procurement cards

3.2.7

3.3

3.3.1

In support of the new strategy, the CPN and the Corporate Procurement team are seeking to draw together a portfolio of local performance indicators for procurement. There remain some issues about the availability and quality of data and the report does require further work, but a list of seventeen local indicators are included at Appendix Two. The CPN expects to review the indicators at regular intervals and will seek to use them when shaping future iterations of the corporate action plan. While this is the beginning of the process it will make sense over years to look at emergency trends.

3.3.2

The total number of purchase orders raised in the Council's procurement systems during 2006/7 was 281,692 with a face value of £615 million. The electronic catalogue, EBP, accounted for 38.5% of this value, interfaces from departmental systems handled 36.2% (including SWIFT, property and passenger transport) and the core R3 system was used for 25.3% (including waste management).

3.4

Departmental Procurement Reviews

3.4.1

Passenger Transport Services: Work has continued on the preliminary tasks related to the tender for Passenger Transport Services in north-east Hampshire (Hart and Rushmoor) that will be issued later in the year. Legal Services agreed the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire and the associated adverts and the validation of transport entitlement is now underway within the Children's Services department. The target date for the tenders to go out is October with the contracts intended to start by June 2008. A temporary administrative resource to support the tender exercise is currently being sought. The original analysis has been revisited as there is a fairly high regular number of changes to routes. The latest information in terms of scope is as follows (previous figures in brackets):

· 186 routes (160) and 56 incumbent suppliers (80)

· 30% of incumbent suppliers have only 1 route (n/a)

· 542 children (450), 60 adults (n/a) and 85 escorts (80)

· £13,691,582 tender value over 5 years incl. extension (£10,600,000 4 yrs)

Outstanding tasks include liaison with other councils, determining bid history of suppliers, finalising terms and conditions, and addressing factors such as inflation (currently 4.8%). The programme will move on to the south of the county once the north-east has been addressed and an examination of the arrangements made for coaches where the five-year value of spend at current levels is over £4.4million is also planned.

3.4.2

Early Payment Discounts : A review with the Environment department covering the Top 50 suppliers has been undertaken to look at the actual payment timescales for goods and services procured from these suppliers. This indicated that 39 are on `immediate payment' terms, and the remainder are paid on a mixture of `within 30 days' and `immediate payment'. The background to these arrangements is under discussion, but in general, it has been concluded that there is little scope for speeding payments further in return for a form of rebate or discount. Opportunities to employ this approach to secure additional savings will be explored with taxi companies after the tender for the pilot areas has been concluded.

3.4.3

Adult Services Domiciliary Care: The report prepared on domiciliary care is being reviewed by Adult Services' senior management team, and it is understood that the principles have been accepted for implementation within the department after a trial in one area. Requests for pricing uplifts have been received from the majority of service providers who in the main have agreed to limit increase to the maximum 1.5% level advised. Requests for a detailed breakdown of costs have been issued to four providers that requested a higher increase in order to evaluate the basis for their claim. Savings secured through this joint exercise to control inflationary pressures are being evaluated.

3.4.4

Data analysis for the next phase of the review of Adult Services domiciliary care, focusing on clients with learning difficulties, physical disabilities and mental health problems, is ongoing together with a discussion about priorities and phasing. Preparations are in hand to undertake (or assist with) a research project into the appropriate cost of care in independent residential and nursing homes.

3.4.5

Postal services: The efficiency measures introduced in response to the introduction of pricing-in-proportion by the Royal Mail continue to pay off and a reasonably significant `cost avoidance' figure of around 21% or some £158,700 has been achieved. Information is being collated from over twenty budget holders to further investigate the opportunity presented by market liberalisation, but the quality of information currently available is not yet sufficient to allow a simple evaluation of the various suppliers' proposals.

3.5

Other Support to Departments

3.5.1

Interviews and tender evaluation have been completed on behalf of the Wessex Youth Offending Team for the Reparative Justice tender. The unsuccessful organisations have been advised of the outcome and no challenges have been received.

3.5.2

The County Council was involved in the presentation on `Value for Money and Procurement' at the `Good Practice Day' held in Winchester on the 19 April. This followed a request from the Audit Commission for the County Council to promote its best practice in Supporting People following the recent `excellent' status awarded to the team. Eighty-five representatives from other teams across the UK attended the event.

3.5.3

The Homelessness Cluster project has been completed and support is being provided for three further tenders, including the Service User Seal of Excellence (SUSE) Programme.

3.5.4

A new contract for Supported Living for Young People with a Disability has been awarded and is expected to bring savings in the region of £60,000 per annum. However, due to the staggered commencement in 2007/08 the savings for this financial year will be around £40,000. This project together with a summary of the other projects with departments is identified in the Review Programme and Savings Schedule (see Appendix Three).

3.5.5

The Early Education and Childcare Unit in Children's Services have requested assistance with a forthcoming contract with a value of around £750,000 for the provision of childcare (day care) and meetings are now taking place.

3.5.6

The tender evaluation for the Independent Fostering Service on behalf of Children's Services has been completed and a Project Initiation Document has been agreed for a review of domiciliary care. Data is being analysed to determine the scope of services provided, service providers used at present and the geographic spread of clients. The team is also represented on the Project Team and Risks Group for provision of the Integrated Youth Support Service (IYSS) and has produced a guidance note on options appraisal and procurement issues for consideration. This scheme is likely to go to tender at a value of more than £5million per annum.

4.

Conclusions

4.1

The procurement agenda is very diverse with a wide range of initiatives. The National Procurement Strategy for Local Government has become less of a driving force now that a large number of the actions have been addressed and the milestone dates have been passed. The main focus is now on the procurement review programme and the team has started to identify the potential benefits of the work with departments. The team also expects to deliver further cashable savings in excess of £0.5 million for departments and a similar amount in non-cashable savings during 2007/08. Substantial savings are also anticipated from the price reviews (yet to be completed) for gas and electricity later this year.

4.2

The County Council has taken steps to develop its capacity to improve its procurement performance and there is a strong body of evidence that this is being achieved. However, there are some issues with parts of the improvement programme and a number of projects are pending rather than being actively driven forward. Therefore, it is timely to review the programme and the resources employed. It is anticipated that a Corporate Procurement Board consisting of a small group of senior managers will be established in the future. The purpose of the Board will be to focus on the scale and direction of the procurement review programme, to consider the efficiency and effectiveness of procurement arrangements, structures and processes, and recommend any necessary funding arrangements.

LINK(S) TO CORPORATE STRATEGY

Yes

No

Hampshire safer and more secure for all

X

Maximising well-being

X

Enhancing our quality of place

X

This report does not link directly to the Corporate Strategy but, nevertheless, requires a decision as it has a positive impact on the management of the Council's resources and on the local economy, by promoting a strategic approach to procurement, and by developing the procurement skills of staff.

Local Performance Indicators for Procurement

1. Performance Indicator P1 - Strategy Implementation

Percentage of milestone activities completed in the National Procurement Strategy for Local Government

Percentage of Milestones completed

December 2003

30%

December 2004

50%

December 2005

80%

December 2006

90%

2. Performance Indicator P2 - Skills Development

Number of staff attending training including the cumulative number

Procurement Essentials

Procurement Overview

Social Service Procurement Overview

Contract and supplier management & basic negotiation

Procurement Partnerships

Specification Writing

Other courses

Total

2003/4

7

95

102

2004/5

34

159

37

230

2005/6

77

84

21

25

10

82

299

2006/7

12

8

16

118

154

Total

123

258

95

21

25

26

237

785

3. Performance Indicators P4 and P5 - Aggregation

P4 - of the top 200 suppliers in company code 1000, % on contract.

P5 - of the top 200 suppliers in company code 1000, % on a collaborative contract.

% of spend `on contract' for top 200 suppliers

% of spend in collaborative contracts for top 200 suppliers

2006/07

>80%

N/A

4. Performance Indicator P12 - Satisfaction with the Corporate Procurement Function

Measured from the results of a survey to be carried out annually

Number of staff surveyed

Number of responses

Number of respondees either very or fairly satisfied

2006

26

10

75%

2007

5. Performance Indicator P13 - Supplier satisfaction with the authority

Measured from the results of a survey to be carried out annually

Number of suppliers surveyed

Number of responses

Number of respondees either very or fairly satisfied with the authority

2006

2818

822

45.01%

2007

6. Performance Indicator P15 - Predictability - time to service delivery

7. Performance Indicator P17 - End User / client satisfaction

8. Performance Indicator P18 - Change in construction costs

P15 -

Construction Time Predictability - the difference between the actual contract duration

and the original contract duration plus agreed extension of time as a percentage of the original contract duration plus agreed extension of time

P17 -

Customer Satisfaction with Service - avg of scores received from clients

on the service provided by Property Services

Customer Satisfaction with Product - based on the score awarded by clients

P18 -

Construction Cost Predictability - the difference between the final construction cost

and the original contract sum plus any additional funding approvals

as a percentage of the original contract sum plus additional approvals

No of projects analysed (over £500,000)

Construction Time Predictability

Customer satisfaction with service

Customer satisfaction with product

Construction Cost Predictability

2005/06

20

10.7%

75%

79%

1.1%

2006/07

9. Performance Indicator P20 - Commodity goods price comparison

Price competitiveness on a basket of products (County Supplies)

Percentage better (lower) than competitors

2003/04

-16.0%

2004/05

-12.3%

2005/06

-10.9%

2006/07

-11.4%

10. Performance Indicator P24 - Average spend per supplier

Company code 1000 - HCC

No of suppliers > £1 million

No of suppliers £0.5 to

£1 million

No of suppliers £0.1 to

£0.5 million

No of suppliers £50K to £100K

No of suppliers £25K to £50K

No of suppliers under £25K

Average spend per supplier

2006/07

81

124

1006

856

1333

27325

£28,222

Company code 5000 - HCC

No of suppliers > £1 million

No of suppliers £0.5 to

£1 million

No of suppliers £0.1 to

£0.5 million

No of suppliers £50K to £100K

No of suppliers £25K to £50K

No of suppliers under £25K

Average spend per supplier

2006/07

1

0

1

2

8

747

£4,897

Company code 4000 - County Supplies

No of suppliers > £1 million

No of suppliers £0.5 to

£1 million

No of suppliers £0.1 to

£0.5 million

No of suppliers £50K to £100K

No of suppliers £25K to £50K

No of suppliers under £25K

Average spend per supplier

2006/07

0

2

11

19

18

341

£18,680

11. Performance Indicator P25 - Percentage of spend through electronic orders

note 1 - The quantity of Purchase orders raised excludes those to internal suppliers and those raised for the purpose of paying a grant

Number of POs

(see note 1)

Qty sent by autofax

% sent by fax

Qty sent by e-mail

% sent by e-mail

Qty sent via a marketplace

% sent via a marketplace

April - June 2005

79184

40

0.05%

0

0.0%

0

0.0%

July - Sept 2005

65801

50

0.08%

0

0.0%

0

0.0%

Oct - Dec 2005

66474

33

0.05%

0

0.0%

0

0.0%

Jan - Mar 2006

73758

5378

7.29%

45

0.1%

0

0.0%

April - June 2006

70530

5350

7.58%

49

0.1%

0

0.0%

July - Sept 200

60481

5069

8.38%

33

0.1%

0

0.0%

Oct - Dec 2006

68423

5544

8.10%

32

0.1%

0

0.0%

Jan - Mar 2007

73585

5982

8.13%

40

0.1%

0

0.0%

April - June 2007

12. Performance Indicator P27 - Percentage of corporate spend through electronic

sourcing

Number of tenders raised in In-tend

Estimated value of contracts* see note 1

April to June 2005

2

£0.14 million

July to September 2005

0

October to December 2005

5

£1.38 to 1.48 million

January to March 2006

1

£0.23 million

April to June 2006

0

July to September 2006

1

£0.65 to 0.75 million

October to December 2006

4

£0.34 to £0.4 million

January - March 2007

14

£4.19 to 4.45 million

April to June 2007

note 1 - based on the value declared in In-tend. Values are not always given.

13. Performance Indicator P29 - Percentage of invoices paid electronically

No of invoices paid by cheque

No of invoices paid by BACs

Total Number of invoices

% invoices paid by BACs

2003/04

112878

551838

664716

83.02%

2004/05

91769

568353

660122

86.10%

2005/06

88510

586312

674822

86.88%

2006/07

74167

578485

652652

88.64%

Apr 2007

5881

45637

51518

88.58%

14. Performance Indicator P30 - Percentage of corporate spend through Procurement cards

note 1 - corporate spend based on the value of purchase orders raised excluding internal suppliers and orders raised for grants.

Payments on purchasing card £s

Corporate spend (see note 1)

%

April 2006

31,076

75,601,176

0.04%

May 2006

0

67705600

0.00%

June 2006

89,184

41,994,084

0.21%

July 2006

74,490

46,888,890

0.16%

August 2006

178,383

35,494,283

0.50%

September 2006

18,659

29,837,759

0.06%

October 2006

358,413

31,489,813

1.14%

November 2006

291,480

34,462,080

0.85%

December 2006

360,170

31,161,070

1.16%

January 2007

369,022

72,558,522

0.51%

February 2007

317,112

32,119,112

0.99%

March 2007

304,841

57,828,941

0.53%

April 2007

426,653

N/A

N/A

15. Performance Indicator P32 - Ethnic Minority Business (EMB) Satisfaction with the council

16. Performance Indicator P33 - Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SME) Satisfaction with the council

17. Performance Indicator P34 - Third Sector Satisfaction with the council

All measurements are in terms of

a) the accessibility of contracts

b) support from the authority in relation to business opportunities

Number of suppliers surveyed

Number of responses

Ethnic Minority Business (EMB) either very or fairly satisfied with the authority

Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SME) either very or fairly satisfied with the authority

Third Sector either very or fairly satisfied with the authority

2006

2818

822

51.52%

44.75%

31.29%

2007