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Join us in-person at the LGA National Construction Conference in London on Thursday 2 February – or in Leeds on Tuesday 7 March
Working with the construction industry, councils are best positioned to lead place-based approaches to hit net zero targets, lead on local green growth and, use procurement best practice to tackle spiralling inflation, resource scarcity, sustainability issues and a move to modern methods of construction and digitalisation.
After three years of online conferences, we are back in person to promote networking on construction across the local government sector. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear and meet speakers from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), the Cabinet Office, local government and industry – and to meet colleagues and share ideas and responses to how climate change, the cost-of-living crisis and global political instability continues to impact the UK’s construction industry and councils’ delivery of construction projects.
National Procurement Strategy benchmarking diagnostic refresh – have your say
We are looking to run our National Procurement Strategy benchmarking diagnostic this summer to fulfil the sectors’ annual benchmarking requirements, as set out in the National Procurement Policy Statement.
Entering into its third iteration we are looking to revamp the diagnostic tool so that it’s a lot more user-friendly, interactive and allows you to use of the data, that you’ve taken the time to collate, much more productively – potentially to feed into action plans, reporting and allow you to focus more clearly on the priorities you and your council have set.
If you would like to have a say in shaping the new diagnostic tool and what it can do for your council, then please email guy.head@local.gov.uk – we are looking to hold a couple of small focus group sessions in the week commencing 20 February.
The Nationwide Association of Fostering Providers – update
The Nationwide Association of Fostering Providers (NAFP) has regular meetings with their Independent Fostering Agency members on a national and regional basis where they discuss sufficiency, recruitment and retention, cost of living, referral activity, contracting and commissioning, monitoring and practice related issues. The NAFP publishes a regular briefing which conveys key messages from their IFA members.
This month, the briefing includes a position statement about the proposed regional care cooperatives, an update on the work to update the national fostering contract, feedback from IFAs regarding the management of annual fee reviews and a response to the Welsh government plan to eliminate profit from children's social care. The briefing, written primarily for local authority commissioning colleagues and strategic partners, also contains links to good practice briefings aimed at improving stability and outcomes for children in care.
If you would like to obtain a copy of the briefing or be added to the mailing list please email marie.tucker@nafp.co.uk
Regional retrofit action planning – webinar blog
Last month we hosted a webinar on regional retrofit action planning to provide delegates with the opportunity to hear how they might be able to increase the energy efficiency of a property through retrofit.
LGA Climate Change Programme decarbonising transport action learning sets – session four blog
In December, we hosted the penultimate session of our decarbonising transport action learning sets. All groups have continued to bring numerous discussion points to the table, from councillor engagement on decarbonisation to school street initiatives to electric vehicle implementation at a parish level.
Streamlining the process of publishing data to the Spend Data Service – Crown Commercial Service survey
The Crown Commercial Service is currently undertaking a Discovery Project to explore how it can improve and streamline the process of publishing data to the Spend Data Service. The Cabinet Office is developing new tools to deliver on the Transforming Public Procurement programme’s transparency ambition, which will ultimately impact on all contracting authorities, including the local government sector.
This service currently allows government departments and arm’s length bodies to submit procurement spend data to a central platform, with the service converting the data to a common format, creating a consolidated view of Government commercial spend.
The Procurement Spend Data Service Research Survey will help us understand how councils currently report and submit data and feed into the development of an integrated service across the whole public sector.
Cabinet Office 'Transforming Public Procurement' update
Monday 23 January, 2.30pm–3.30pm | Online
Decarbonising transport (LGA webinar)
Tuesday 24 January, 10.00am–11.30am | Zoom
Social Value 101 (Social Value Portal webinar)
Thursday 26 January, 2.00pm–3.00pm | Online
G-Cloud 13 – what can I buy and how can I buy it? (Crown Commercial Service webinar)
Wednesday 1 February 10.30am–11.30am and monthly sessions running until August 2023 | Online
LGA National Construction Conference (London)
Thursday 2 February, 9.15am–3.30pm | 18 Smith Square, London SW1P 3HZ
Travel, accommodation and venue solutions frameworks (Crown Commercial Service webinar)
Monday 6 February, 10.00am–11.30am | Online
Vodafone One Government Day – Resilience
Thursday 9 February, 9.30am–11.30am | In person, London (Venue TBC)
LGA National Construction Conference (Leeds)
Tuesday 7 March, 9.15am–3.30pm | Horizon Leeds, 2 Brewery Wharf, Kendall Street, Leeds LS10 1JR
Procurement Reform Conference (London)
Wednesday 1 March, 8.30am–4.00pm | Queen Elizabeth II Centre, Broad Sanctuary, London SW1P 3EE
Procurement Reform Conference (Manchester)
Tuesday 14 March, 8.30am–4.00pm | Mercure Manchester Piccadilly Hotel, Portland Street, Manchester M1 4PH
The LGA Procurement team manages several LGA webpages dedicated to your needs. Please email guy.head@local.gov.uk if you would like any information added to our webpages:
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