Procurement reform update: October 2023

Procurement reform pre-implementation checklist

As the Procurement Bill gets closer to achieving Royal Assent, the evolution in procurement legislation will require colleagues across the Welsh public sector to do things differently. The upcoming changes will not only affect procurement and commercial teams, they will drive behavioural and cultural change across the organisation to improve the way contracts for goods, services and works are procured. To help contracting authorities across Wales get ready for the new rules, we have updated the pre-implementation checklist that we previously published in October last year.

The checklist, which can be downloaded via the Procurement Reform section on Sell2Wales, identifies potential areas that contracting authorities should start thinking about now, to ensure they are ready and able to take advantage of the increased flexibility and transparency associated with the new rules.

Please familiarise yourselves with the content and share with colleagues and stakeholders in your organisation and wider network.

If you have any queries, please e-mail: ProcurementReformTeam@gov.wales

Well-being Impacts Working Group

The Well-being Impacts Working Group was established in September 2022. The group was created following a report published by Cwmpas, which reviewed the social value landscape in Wales.

Chaired by Denbighshire’s Karen Bellis, the group is made up of stakeholders from across the Welsh public sector who are working together to ensure that there is consistency in terms of the approach, measurement and reporting of social value across all public sector organisations in Wales. The group have made good progress in addressing the recommendations set out in the report. Notable milestones achieved to date include:

• Developing a definition of social value which clearly reflects the Welsh context and aligns with terminology in both the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act and the Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Act.
• Looking at developing a consistent methodology for measuring and reporting social value through well-being impacts.

The group have developed a series of measures across 6 high level categories that are aligned to the 7 well-being goals in the Well-being of Future Generations Act, which it is proposed that contracting authorities across Wales will be required to measure and report against.

The 6 high level categories are:

• Ethical employment and skills
• Carbon and resource efficiency
• Health and equality
• Communities and local economy
• Culture, heritage and language
• Nature

Establishing an initial set of agreed and commonly used measures will mean we can develop an all-Wales picture of the well-being impacts our procurement activity is delivering. These measures, which are currently being finalised, are the first step on a much greater journey in relation to how the Welsh public sector deliver greater social value through the delivery of more well-being impacts.

Further details will follow as the work processes. If you require more information on any of the above, please e-mail: ProcurementReformTeam@gov.wales