Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by caseymorrison on February 15, 2012 at 21:09

http://bristolpound.org

Permalink Reply by Heather Niven on February 16, 2012 at 22:38

Proper York monopoly! Love it! 

Permalink Reply by Andyd on February 18, 2012 at 11:22

Provide a single contact point on the council website for any local firms looking to find out about contracts with the council. Each department doing their own thing makes for flexibility, but centralising procurement could save costs or could just increase bureaucracy. Need to find a happy medium that is readily accessible to local businesses. Andy

Permalink Reply by caseymorrison on February 19, 2012 at 19:11

Homeshare international..? http://homeshare.org/default.aspx

Permalink Reply by Simon Young on February 21, 2012 at 8:39

What about an App? See http://ow.ly/1GIOfi

"The government has launched a new "app store" which it says will help small businesses offer IT services to the public sector.

The Cloudstore, as it will be known, will feature more than 1,700 apps provided by more than 250 suppliers.

It is hoped the service will allow organisations to purchase services on a "pay-as-you-go" basis, rather than be locked into lengthy contracts..."

Permalink Reply by Antony Powell on February 22, 2012 at 13:41

I am just catching up on this Challenge/Thread. Two suggestions on matching Council Needs with Suppliers:

On the Needs side, there are 'known Needs' where the Council has identified purchasing requirements and initiated a tendering process; but perhaps we can better exploit the 'unknown Needs' - i.e. where goods or service providers can identify other ways for the Council to save money or improve its services. In other words, are there ways to improve the process for 'cold' approaches to the Council to help improvement? A successful thread of the open innovation movement has been the use of open competitions or bounties for innovation, e.g. a prize for ways to reduce the costs of graffiti removal. Equally, it is common in industry to provide rewards on the basis of say 10% of measurable cost savings. The rewards don't have to be large but they do incentivise individuals and organisations that are capable of improving the Council's performance; And while ideally we would like initiatives like GeniUS to get us innovations for free, some problems require considerable investment in order to identify and implement solutions that really deliver the benefits.

On the Supplier side, I am presuming that local providers are preferable as it keeps money in the local economy (but presumably EU/fair trade laws require that there is no bias). Perhaps we can do more to provide far richer descriptions of the goods/services that local enterprises are capable of providing in a way that makes them easier to match with the Needs of the Council. In one sense this is like a better 'dating service'. A starting point would be to perform a more complete 'Census' of providers to provide a rich classification of their goods and services - perhaps with an awareness campaign through business mailings. A similar rich classification of Council Needs can then be used to provide more accurate alerts to opportunities for both parties. The main improvement would not be in say replacing the Council's main paper supplier but in expanding the supply base for providing less 'standardised' goods and services. That said, if each of the Council Directorates were able to express their procurement needs in a more detailed yet consistent manner there could be more opportunity to combine or reduce purchasing activities. I know some elements of this will be in the new procurement system but the means by which Needs and Suppliers can be described is open to improvement.

Permalink Reply by Chris Wedgwood on February 22, 2012 at 15:28

As a small local business I welcome the interest in reforming the procurement process.

As far as IT goes at least I think the Council is missing a trick. Instead of buying in a big expensive package, why not engage in a more entrepreneurial way with software developers? 

For instance I could see a possibility where we would offer to work to develop software for the council for about 20% of the actual cost of buying in, in return for 80% of the IP ownership and the option to sell the system on to other councils with similar need. 

By reducing the cash input the council would probably avoid European Tender threshold values. There may even be the possibility of grant funding, R+D Tax credits etc.. And after a couple of sales the Council would have made money from the whole thing instead of paying out.

I'd be interested in finding out the Council's view on something like this and if it could form part of the strategy to help deliver services at lower cost. 

Permalink Reply by Zara Carter on February 29, 2012 at 22:25

Hi!
A big thank you to everyone who has responded to this challenge which has now closed.
We are considering a fantastic range of submissions to see how we can begin to develop these further and will keep you updated as we progress through this
Forum.
Kind regards
Zara

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