Articles
Thought Leadership 
Best Practice Best Value - The procurement reality
E-procurement specialist, Peter Robbins, looks at how PSBs can respond to the government's call for more efficient processes.
The public sector continues to reach for the ‘Best Practice Best Practice’ procurement mantra with open arms having been stimulated by the Gershon report and Transformational Government movement. But with several juxtaposition views on how to achieve this purchasing panacea it is becoming increasingly difficult for buyers to cut through the ‘fog’ and focus on the answer.
Here are several valuable processes and mechanics that currently mould and offer some support to purchasers looking for best value best practice, including framework agreements, EU procurement guidelines, purchasing cards and so on. But these are tools that merely provide a level of structure to an organisation’s existing purchasing process. They are one piece of the jig-saw.
Best practice best value procurement is a purchasing process that considers and returns more than just best price, it is a process that takes account of the whole ‘life cost’ of buying a product. That is to say the non-cashable elements of time, administration, sourcing and benchmarking are taken into account. A process that delivers the lowest overall ‘life cost’ of buying the best priced product can only be described as best value - a combination of cashable and non-cashable savings.
Best practice is the actual process or procedure element that secures the very best priced product in the shortest possible time. This should include numerous activities that are generally considered to add value such as benchmarking for consistent best price delivery, a policing function to ensure the organisation is getting the deals it has agreed, a full audit trail and more than three requisite quotes. This type of process will enable departments to means test and prove that they are securing sustained best value.
In many cases this structured process includes or should include one of the latest e-procurement technologies for fiscal and time savings. In fact, the right technology could provide buyers with the structured process they have been looking for.
Technology is all about providing an environment in which Management Information such as product specifications; price and stock can be provided in user friendly formats, enhancing the knowledge of the purchasing individual, making their role more efficient.
The Office of Government Commerce BS Catalist approved solutions like theitindex.co.uk/gov, however, go way beyond the basics of best practice, offering structured end-to-end purchasing environments that, for example, automatically offer considerably more than three independent quotes for any given product online.
Uniquely, product prices are aggregated and users see the current UK best price from multiple feeds including a Catalist framework price, amongst others, and a best private sector price alongside stock availability. The solution conducts an automatic benchmarking and price policing role with multiple reporting functions. This empowers users to make an intuitive purchasing choice.
This particular solution is in fact the only technology in the world to be pre-qualified and accredited as ‘Best Practice Best Value’ by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales.
Theitindex.co.uk/gov recently helped Coventry Council’s Woodway Park School save 10% on its IT budget and four working days a month in time. The school has been able to buy more for the same budget and smash the DFES PC:pupil ratio at 2:1, so delivering better, faster technology education to its pupils.
It is important for any organisation to adopt ‘best practice best value’ approaches if they are to become genuinely efficient in the current climate of efficiency pressures. The ODPM and the Chancellor are all qualifying the savings they wish to see by specific deadlines. This solution will suit them.
Meanwhile, with organisations such as OGCbuying.solutions offering a form of pre-qualified best practice suppliers through various framework agreements, life for the public sector procurer couldn’t be more focused. Equally, with so much opportunity for the procurer to reach for best value best practice tools, the time is now for public sector bodies to make a move for early savings.
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