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The Procurement Act: go live date
Following the laying of secondary legislation last month, Cabinet Office have announced the ‘go-live’ date for the new regime is expected to be Monday 28 October 2024. This date will be formalised in Commencement Regulations which is expected to be made in May.
Procurement Act: e-learning launched
To mark the beginning of the six-month preparation period, Cabinet Office have announced the launch of the official e-learning product.
This is a key learning product to support practitioners in implementing the new regime. The e-learning is aimed at all operational procurement staff. This includes staff whose main role is to run tenders or let contracts, or procurement professionals whose main role is to manage suppliers or contracts.
Comprising of 10, one hour modules, the e-learning covers all aspects of the new reforms, such as key regulation changes, transparency and the competitive flexible procedure.
Learners who complete the course and achieve certification will be awarded a certificate along with an e-badge for adding to email signatures, evidencing attainment at Practitioner level. The e-badge will be available to manually download from the Government Commercial College (GCC) website upon completion of the e-learning modules. The full content of the modules will be published in May.
The e-learning modules are only available via registration with the GCC, once registered, you will find the e-learning product on the dedicated Transforming Public Procurement (TPP) area on the GCC website.
Whilst the e-learning is only available to procurement practitioners, we encourage all our other stakeholders to view the Knowledge Drops, with videos for suppliers, including dedicated videos for SME and VCSE suppliers.
If you experience any issues in accessing the e-learning via the GCC, please contact gcftpp-busops@cabinetoffice.gov.uk.
TPP Communities of Practice meetups
The Communities of Practice suite of meetup events will be hosted and delivered via MS teams. These meetups will be open to all practitioners and will cover specific topics across the procurement lifecycle including navigating the new procedures and insights to transparency, and helping to increase confidence when using the Procurement Act 2023.
For all your questions relating to implementation of the Act please email our service desk at procurement.reform@cabinetoffice.gov.uk or contact our procurement team at Procurement@local.gov.uk.
11th Annual Construction Conference
The National Association of Construction Frameworks (NACF) are hosting the Annual Construction Conference in association with the Local Government Association (LGA) on Wednesday 8 May in Leeds.
Hear from experts and peers as they explore how to maximise procurement efficiency, value for money and local, community impact in a world of increasing pressure and limited resources.
Contract Management Pioneer Programme (CMPP) templates and tools
To accompany Local Partnership’s successful Contract Management Pioneer Programme (CMPP) they have just published a regularly updated suite of information based on work with councils as part of the CMPP programme. This includes:
- headline information you might find useful to share with colleagues not so familiar with contract management
- a range of self-evaluation and self-assessment templates
- a RAID-A template
- intro to contract management training slides
- guidance on life-cycle based frameworks
- relationships with suppliers
- tiering
- improving capacity
- continuous improvement.
If you'd like to know more about CMPP which is fully funded, free and accredited training in contract management and wrap-around support for councils, or you've found any information helpful, please contact them at CMPPenquiries@localpartnerships.gov.uk.
Business Process Mapping toolkit
Local Partnerships have also launched the updated Business Process Mapping (BPM) toolkit to include contract management to cover the complete commissioning lifecycle. If you are not familiar with the toolkit it is a step-by-step, stage-by-stage guide to using business process mapping, to record and then recognise areas of streamlining public sector procurement, and now contract management.
Many thanks to our testing authorities who have helped shape the toolkit – Harrow, Slough, Bradford, Derbyshire and Greater Manchester Combined Authority.
Crown Commercial Service vehicle aggregation
CCS is planning to conduct a vehicle aggregation event later this year to achieve greater savings for all participating customers. The event will combine the vehicle requirements of participating customers. Suppliers will be invited to enhance their standard framework support terms for the volume of vehicles they are bidding for and the resulting lower prices will then be made available to participating customers.
30 April 2024, 10.00am – 11.00am
Thursday 2 May 2024, 11.00am - 12.00pm | Virtual
Wednesday 8 May 2024, 9.30am - 4.00pm | Horizon Leeds, 2 Kendall Street LS10 1JR | In person
May & June | meetups | Virtual
16 May 2024 | Liverpool Exhibition Centre
Thursday 23 May 2024, 10:30am -12:00pm | Virtual
Tuesday 11 June 2024, 10.00am -11.45am| Officers roundtable
15 -17 October 2024 | In person/virtual
27 - 29 November 2024 | Arena and Convention Centre (ACC) Liverpool
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