(a)

in 2009 a review was undertaken looking at the procurement processes across the council, which identified a non-contracted spend of £75M;

(b)

it was realised that by gaining control of non-contracted spend and achieving a 5 per cent saving on this spend could save the council £3.75M a year;

(c)

in order to achieve the £3.75M and other savings the council identified the following proposals as being integral to the Procure to Pay (P2P) Lean Strategy and to assisting the council to achieve its efficiencies targets;

·         

buyer roll-out – implement 8 buyers who would take on the role of purchasing currently carried out by 323 staff across the organisation who were authorised to raise purchase orders, to monitor and control the spend within departments;

·         

vendor management - to ensure that all suppliers have relevant accreditation eg  insurance and reduce duplication of suppliers;

·         

review Contract Standing Orders to fall in line with procurement legislation;

·         

review of current procurement documentation eg ts & cs, tender docs etc

(d)

in April 2010 a web portal was launched called ‘Sell2Plymouth’ which aimed to gain control over the council’s suppliers for low value procurement (under £75K) and promote small local businesses;

(e)

there were 14,000 suppliers in 2009 with an average of 103 new suppliers being added to the procurement system per month, this had now been reduced to 40 suppliers being added per month;

(f)

Contract Standing Orders has now been reviewed and will be submitted to City Council with the updated constitution in June 2011;

(g)

invoicing was centralised in November 2010 which led to more control of non-contract spend and a reduction in sundry payments, this has realised an efficiency saving of £28.5K to date;

(h)

two buyers were recruited in October 2010, to control spend within Corporate Support, with a further four buyers expected to be recruited at the end of March 2011 following an internal transfer of staff.  The buyers now sourcing and ordering all goods within Corporate Support and have to date achieved efficiency savings of £60K;

(i)

the P2P target savings are revenue and not capital and are expected to deliver £0.85M in 2011-12, £1.5M in 2012-13 and £4.0M in 2013-14;

(j)

staff with access to purchasing cards will also be reduced considerably as there is a concern that they will be used to avoid the new process.  Currently there are 396 staff who can purchase goods using a card, unless it is critical to business their cards will be removed and the buyers will be issued cards. 

(k)

purchasing cards would remain with staff who have a critical need to spend without notice being given;

(l)

Plymouth City Council partakes in collaborative procurements as part of the Devon Procurement Partnership, which is made up of other Devon based local authorities and other local government organisations.  We are also looking to open it up to Cornwall Council;

(m)

controlling expenditure is the first phase of the P2P Strategy.  There is also a project for  category management, which will aim to control purchasing within specific services i.e. transport and will lead to better engagement and relationships with partners.