National Advisory Group (NAG) for Procurement e-bulletin: 6 April 2020

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National Advisory Group (NAG) for Procurement Covid-19 Bulletin

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Weekly Procurement e-bulletin, 6 April 2020

Welcome to the NAG and SOPO newsletter for 6 April 2020. Feel free to circulate to your colleagues.

This newsletter is now delivered through our corporate service that handles all our various e-bulletins. Manage or create a subscription.

EAFIP Funding

The European Assistance for Innovation Procurement programme now has a widened focus to include ICT solutions aimed to tackle COVID-19 or similar crises through innovation procurement.  The fund application deadline has also been extended to 31 May.  Further details and apply now.

Personal protective equipment

Public Health England have now published their updated PPE guidance across all settings. While we welcome the improvements, there are still is an urgent need for PPE supplies across many settings to keep staff and residents safe. We raise every issue with the relevant government department, so it is essential you continue to email us at coronavirus.enquiries@local.gov.uk with any PPE issues affecting your local area.

Colleagues at LGA have sent a joint letter with the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services to Matt Hancock and are working with children’s and adults social services to highlight with MHCLG the risks to children’s social workers caused by lack of PPE and the need for a solution.

On 28 March a letter from NHS England on the supply and use of PPE was copied to all council Chief Executives and Directors of Adult Social Care.  We welcome the regulations being temporarily suspended to fast-track supplies of PPE as announced by the Business Secretary, Alok Sharma but, again, call for this to include vital frontline council workers as well as NHS staff.

BSIF PPE Safety

We have been contacted by the British Safety Industry Federation (BSIF) - the lead UK association for the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Regulation 2016/425. Recognised as a Competent Authority by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE). BSIF note that at this time there is a significant increase in the amount of non-compliant unsuitable PPE being offered. The BSIF run a Quality Assurance scheme called The Registered Safety Supplier Scheme in relation to PPE compliance, and can assist with questions around PPE offered, fake documentation and products etc. Find out more or email roy.wilders@bsif.co.uk or Paul.Manning@bsif.co.uk

Cyber Security and Digital

Colleagues at LGA have been working on pulling together an e-bulletin covering cyber security and digital issues.  We are already sending this out to ICT leads in councils but any procurement officers can also access by emailing cybersecurity@local.gov.uk

State aid

The EU has this week adopted the necessary legislation for the EU’s ‘Coronavirus Response Investment Initiative’. If adopted in the UK, it will allow EU structural funds to be reoriented towards healthcare systems, SME support and employment schemes in the light of the pandemic. The new measure means unused EU funds can be used to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19 instead of returning them to the EU budget. The EU’s legislation will enter into force on 1 April. The LGA is in close contact with the UK government regarding the UK’s potential participation.

Last week the European Commission granted state aid approval to two separate UK schemes to support SME’s affected by coronavirus. The UK’s “Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme" (CBILS) will provide respectively:

  1. guarantees that cover 80 per cent of loan facilities for SMEs with a turnover of up to £45 million to cover their working and investment capital needs. This scheme will be implemented through the British Business Bank; and,
  2. direct grants to support SMEs affected by the coronavirus outbreak. The overall budget for this scheme is £600 million.

During the transition period EU law, including state aid rules, continues to apply to the UK. In the light of the outbreak, the European Commission has adopted a Temporary Framework to enable flexibility and allow state aid to be promptly directed to supporting health and the economy.

Data collection

There are currently national discussions about the preferred solution for collecting data from providers on their resilience levels (morbidity among customers, staffing issues, PPE and other) and on their capacity for new work. It has been agreed that the solution should engage centrally with all providers rather than through local authorities, but the results of the collection will be made available to local authorities. We know this development will create concerns and we will continue to work with ADASS and others to do our utmost to ensure this is beneficial rather than detrimental.

Supplier update – ATI Cremators

We understand that ATI Cremators, a major supplier of cremators and associated services, have gone in to liquidation. If ATI Cremators are linked to the supply of your services please email us at Coronavirus.enquiries@local.gov.uk and quote the case number 564 in the subject line of your email.

Construction contracts 

Additional guidance relating to construction contracts is being developed and will be available soon – we will keep you updated. 

Events and training

Free contract management e-learning course

For those of you not involved in front line service delivery and currently being asked to work from home, you might now find some time for some continuing professional development. We negotiated a number of places on the Government Commercial Function’s Building contract and supplier management capability across government contract management e-learning modules. The foundation course aims to help contract managers achieve better outcomes and value for money through informed and timelier contract management decision-making. Over 1,000 council officers have enrolled on the course with 500 alone signing up in the latest cohort. Please get in touch if you or your colleagues are interested to join them. Email productivity@local.gov.uk  

Note: some of you will have experienced difficulties with logging into this portal and we have been told that we’ll get an update on this soon.  Good news is that the free of charge access to the e-learning portal for contract management training has been extended to end of June.

The European Academy is also offering online procuementtraining:

25 May 2020 - Effective E-Procurement in the Public Sector

Focusing on:

  • Methods and models to support better contracting
  • Evaluation of performance
  • Digital tools for e-procurement

29 May 2020 - Risk Management in Public Procurement

Focusing on:

  • Identifying and translating risks in contract
  • Managing risks and expectations in the tender phase
  • Identifying effective risk management tools
  • Preventing risks in different phases of the process

09 June 2020 - Procure to Pay Process Optimisation - Reducing Costs   

Focusing on:

  • Fraud prevention
  • Risk Mitigation
  • Managing Complex Contracts