Agenda item

Report of the Chamberlain.

The Committee considered a report of the Chamberlain which provided an update on the work of City Procurement over the last quarter.

The Chairman welcomed the progress outlined in the report and Members asked a number of question regarding the report, particularly in relation to working with small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), the target for invoices with purchasing orders (POs) and compliance with no PO no Pay within the City of London Police.

The Chamberlain advised that working with SMEs was a particular focus for the Corporation and SMEs were given individual coaching in the use of the new procurement systems to assist SMEs and to advise them of the benefits of this approach. The Chamberlain advised that the target for invoices with POs was 97% and progress with this would be assisted by work to ensure that the procurement process fitted in with the internal processes of the Police. The Chamberlain also advised that where POs were not provided for purchases, City Procurement assumed that this was an error on the part of the Corporation Officer and ensured that training was provided to ensure that a PO was provided in future, rather than assuming an error on the part of the contractor.

Members also asked for an update in relation to the issue which had previously been raised regarding the exclusion of legal fees from the no PO, no pay scheme. The Chamberlain advised that this was something that City Procurement would conduct a further review of, but had not had the resources to conduct a thorough review at this point. The Committee was also assured that legal fees were a very small proportion of the overall procurement package.

Members requested that future iterations of this report provided information on trends to allow analysis of the direction of performance.

RESOLVED – That the Committee notes the report.