Agenda and minutes

The chair advised the committee that at today’s meeting, we would discuss how to improve our strategic procurement function with Steve Robinson, the Managing Director of Atebion Solutions, following an extensive review. He explained this has been a significant priority for the scrutiny committee over the past 18 months. He welcomed committee members, the executive members and guests to the meeting explaining that we would begin with introductions prior to holding a moment’s silence to reflect on the sad passing of a long standing valued and committed member of this select committee, Councillor David Dovey. The chair addressed the committee by saying;

“I have been really fortunate to have worked with David over many years and to have come to know him so well. He was my next door neighbour in terms of wards and as chair of this committee, I’m honoured to have had the known David and to have received advice from David and other committee members, David having had previous experience in business outside of the public sector. That has been invaluable to me both in terms of improving my own knowledge, but also in our work as a committee. I’m heartbroken to be honest and I am really going to miss David as a friend and a mentor. I would like us to take a moment’s silence to reflect on David’s passing”.

“Thank you councillors and officers. I know many of you worked very closely with David and are equally feeling this loss and we send our thoughts to Stephanie and Spencer and all of David’s family at this very difficult time”.

The committee agreed to record any declarations of interest as and when appropriate in discussing the reports.

There were no members of the public expressing an interest in addressing the committee.

Cath Fallon, Head of Enterprise and Community Animation at Monmouthshire Council and Steve Robinson, Head of Procurement at Cardiff Council and Managing Director of Atebion introduced themselves to the committee. They explained that the proposal being brought to the committee for discussion was for Monmouthshire and Cardiff Councils to collaborate on strategic procurement, as part of Monmouthshire’s budget proposals for 2021/22. Members heard that the review was conducted by Atebion, which is the trading arm of Cardiff Council’s procurement services. The review highlighted the limited capacity within Monmouthshire, with a small team comprising a procurement officer and a procurement manager. It suggested there was limited capacity for these officers to influence behaviours relating to the £100 million 3^rd party annual spend or to influence how that spend delivers the council’s priorities in terms of innovation, economic, social and environmental considerations, as well as cultural, wellbeing, value for money and efficiency, governance and risk management considerations.

The review initially recommended increasing capacity by employing 3 category specialists and a business systems analyst, but it was felt that the review didn’t extend far enough to help us undertake the business transformation that would help us spend more wisely, improve our procurement governance and therefore reduce our risk. We want to be at the forefront in responding to national changes such as the introduction of the new socio economic duty for councils and also consider new ways to measure the social value of our contracts and how we can increase the benefits to the community through local employment and apprenticeship opportunities, adding value to local businesses and supply chains. 

We have stepped up our ambitions as a council on the social justice agenda, by looking at how we tackle the major issues such as poverty and homelessness and ahead of the new socio-economic duty, by thinking about how we can promote equitable prosperity and reduce inequalities and by examining our strategic decisions to ensure we are taking the socio economic disadvantage into account.

In a strategic procurement context, we feel there is a real need to have a much stronger focus on local wealth creating opportunities, particularly from an enterprise and local development perspective. We would like to enable more opportunities for local companies to bid for contracts through ‘meet the buyer events’ and to break down the contracts in order to make them more accessible and to look to safeguard our local employment and generate more job opportunities for local residents.

We also need to give a focus to the circular economy in terms of decarbonisation and considering reuse and recycling and also our foundational economy in terms of enabling and enhancing our local supply chains, our local hospitality sector, our local care sector and our local retail sector by strengthening our support to them.

The proposal we are bringing to members today is that in taking into account the findings of the review, we agree to enter into a mutually beneficial collaboration with Cardiff Council, initially for a 3-year  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

We have had to postpone our LDP workshop this week as the health board is unable to attend. The next one is on 9^th March.

Our Next meeting is LDP. We’d also like to look at the Business and Enterprise strategy and we’d like to table the Council’s ‘Plan on a Page’ to identify topics for the forward direction to help us shape our work programme.

We’d like to table an update on Employment and Skills and the work with business, apprenticeships and the Kickstart programme. Also we need to table an update on Mon Life.