Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140-159)
9 MARCH 2005
DR PAUL
LEINSTER, MR
MARK YEOMANS
AND MR
CHRIS BROWNE
Q140 Joan Walley: The risk assessment
linked to procurement.
Mr Browne: It is not totally transparent
to us who is doing everything. My colleagues behind me from IDeA
I am sure will talk to you later about the risk assessment approach
they have developed that is targeted at local authorities, so
there is something there. The Welsh Procurement Initiative is
developing a risk assessment approach as well within the government
of Wales. I also believe that NHS PASA have adopted a risk assessment
approach for NHS purchases.
Mr Yeomans: What is of interest
is that we do get a lot of approaches for advice and support from
external organisations. We have placed all of these models on
our website. Quite interestingly, a number of utilities have embraced
the way in which we operate, particularly in the water sector.
Q141 Joan Walley: How much do you think
there are other organisations out there who have got the expertise
to do this, or is that something which needs to be trained?
Mr Yeomans: The basic risk methodology
any purchasing professional should be able to apply. If you take
the application of more advanced risk principles then you are
going to want someone who is trained up in the area. We train
all of our buyers in sustainable procurement principles and how
to operate the risk models that we use.
Q142 Joan Walley: In so far as guidance
is concerned, there is guidance from Defra, is there not?
Mr Yeomans: Yes.
Q143 Joan Walley: Do you know if that
is being reviewed at the moment?
Mr Browne: There are two pieces
of work. Defra have produced in the last year a joint note, Environmental
Issues in Purchasing, with the OGC. There is also a draft
joint note at the moment which is on Social Issues in Purchasing,
which we provided comments on. There are those two documents that
we have worked on.
Mr Yeomans: In our evidence we
propose that those two documents should be integrated into one
consolidated document.
Q144 Joan Walley: Looking at government
departments it seems to us from the reports that we have had that
there are something like 18 government departments. Eight said
that they had carried out an environmental risk assessment, seven
said that they had partly and five did nothing at all. Is that
because there is not the expertise in government departments or
is it just that it is not a priority or there is no leadership
to make sure that it does get carried out?
Dr Leinster: It is very difficult
for us to answer that question. We do not know.
Q145 Joan Walley: Surely you should know,
should you not?
Dr Leinster: I am not sure why.
Q146 Joan Walley: Because you lead by
example.
Dr Leinster: We certainly lead
by example, or we hope we lead by example, in this area. What
is needed is clear objectives and targets set for government departments
and for other organisations. Once you have got those clear objectives
and targets and government departments are required to monitor
and report against those then you would have the level of transparency
that we are looking for. In terms of skills, as has been said,
this is not difficult to do. The skills are readily available.
The training is readily available. It is a matter of getting over
the inertia and starting. Sometimes, when people look at this
as a subject area, it is large and it is forbidding and what we
would encourage people to do is try something, see how it works
and then try some more.
Q147 Joan Walley: If you were giving
advice, say, to the House of Commons Commission in respect of
procurement policy in the Palace of Westminster, what would be
the first bit of advice that you would give to get over this inertia
or lack of priority?
Dr Leinster: What I think I would
do is seek to work with them to identify what the key environmental
impacts are that occur because of the purchasing system: what
are the major spends, what are the major environmental impacts,
and between those to work out one or two areas of purchasing that
you are going to tackle, and then put in place a plan to address
that.
Q148 Joan Walley: Would you expect them
to have that information as a starting point and would you expect
that plan to be drawn up?
Dr Leinster: They should have
the information on what their major spend areas are. What they
will not have just now is what the environmental impacts are associated
with those different spend areas. That can be done in a simple
six-stage process. The guidance is available on our website, as
Mark has said, so the tools are there that they could use. If
they did that they would be able to progress.
Q149 Mr Challen: There seems to be an
abundance of guidance on sustainable procurement but perhaps a
deficit in leadership terms. Would you agree with that in terms
of the government driving this process? Is there a problem in
that the OGC and Defra both seem to have responsibilities here?
Mr Yeomans: OGC lead the overall
policy on public procurement, so from that perspective it is fairly
evident who leads. As the Agency sees it Defra are the expert
advisers to OGC.
Q150 Mr Challen: Do you think that is
the right way round? Is Defra not likely to be more tuned into
this whole area of policy than the OGC?
Mr Yeomans: We sit on the Sustainable
Procurement Advisory Group that OGC lead with Defra. We put all
of our models before them and we have been quite influential in
a lot of the documentation and guidance that has been put out.
The documentation that is put in place is kept under constant
review. It is part of our role to encourage them. Whether there
are tricks to be played in how it is promoted I cannot comment
on. What I would say is that the profile is going to rise significantly
following this week's publication of the UK Sustainable Development
Strategy in which procurement is highlighted in the Prime
Minister's forward and is identified as leading by example.
Q151 Mr Challen: That is the case. This
is Defra document, of course, not an OGC document. Do you think
there are changes that could be made which would improve the leadership?
Do you think that document you have just mentioned will suffice?
Mr Yeomans: I am aware from my
own membership of the OGC Chief Executives' Advisory Group that
within the last six weeks there has been a presentation on sustainable
procurement strategy to all the heads of procurement in Governance.
My view is that it is rising up the agenda.
Q152 Mr Challen: Rising up on the agenda
of the OGC?
Mr Yeomans: Rising up the agenda
for procurement and my guess is that therefore the OGC will be
responding to that.
Q153 Mr Challen: You do not think they
have hindered the process at all?
Mr Yeomans: From our involvement
with OGC I think they have done a reasonably good job so far.
What our evidence is saying is that they can improve on what they
have done by focusing resources through a risk-based approach.
Q154 Mr Challen: What we have found in
the past is that Defra might provide the guidance and the advice,
if you like, to the departments, but sometimes it seems that other
departments have a take-it or leave-it approach. Does OGC itself
have dedicated professionals in this area and do they have the
expertise themselves to understand the significance of the advice
they are getting?
Mr Yeomans: Our view on this would
probably be around the recommendation we have made in relation
to targets in this area. It is difficult for us to see what level
of performance is achieved and for the public to see what level
of performance is achieved if there is no reporting of any substance
in this area. We report on our approach to sustainable procurement
in our own environmental report. If there was some target setting
in this area then you would be able to see the areas where the
activity was not at the level it perhaps should be.
Dr Leinster: We think that sustainable
procurement should be just one part of an overall environmental
management system within a department or within an organisation,
so you would get commitment to managing the overall environmental
impacts of that department and part of that is then sustainable
procurement. The OGC leading on it means that they are able to
talk to the procurement professionals and I think that is important
because they will then be talking professional to professional.
What we then need to do is make sure that the guidance that the
procurement professionals are given incorporates as a natural
part of the process sustainable procurement activities. To drive
this I think you then need clear objectives being given with targets
and then with a monitoring process. Who sets those objectives,
targets and process I think is what you meant.
Mr Challen: Yes.
Q155 Chairman: Would you as an Agency
like to have a more formal role in procurement in government?
Dr Leinster: I do not think so.
Q156 Chairman: Are you seeking that as
a territorial ambition?
Dr Leinster: No. We are here as
advisers to government and this is probably one of the most difficult
areas sometimes for us where not only are we advisers for government
but we also set ourselves up as leaders by example. That is sometimes
an uncomfortable place but I do not think we will be seeking any
more formal role than that.
Q157 Mr Challen: You said in your memorandum
that public targets need to be more explicit and transparent so
that challenging environmental objectives are both set and seen
to be delivered. How could this be achieved?
Mr Browne: As Paul mentioned before,
the key thing is having a departmental environmental management
system because the issue you can find is that procurement are
maybe having targets placed on them when the rest of the department
are not, so you can find that your specifier is doing procurement
work for a specifier who is the project manager running the contract.
If they have not got the same pressures in terms of delivering
to a target you can sometimes find procurement are mismatched
with the rest of the organisation. If you have a wider organisational
EMS (environmental management system) then basically the organisation
will have identified all its key impacts of which procurement
should always be one. It will have set targets across the organisation
which the chief executive will have committed to, and then procurement
will be working within a framework that fits in with the rest
of the organisation rather being on their own. If there is a wider
organisational EMS ideally it should be publicly reported in terms
of progress and achievements, like the Environment Agency does
every year. That way it is transparent and that will also motivate
people to make sure they deliver because they know their target
is going to be placed in the public domain, but that EMS is quite
key because it is about procurement fitting in with the rest of
the organisation, not just doing something on its own that does
not fit in with everything else.
Q158 Mr Challen: I said before that there
seems to be an abundance of guidance but perhaps insufficient
technical guidance on how to buy sustainably. How could we improve
on that? Where could be the sources of more technical advice and
assistance?
Mr Yeomans: Exploiting the guidance
that is available internationally is one of the areas that we
have been looking at. There is some excellent work that has been
done by different international governments. The most recent one
that we have been involved in discussing and commenting on is
work that is being done in Japan. The use of the internet and
websites that lead purchasers through to particular guidance is
important. We have developed a suite of 35 product guidance notes
for areas of environmental impact within our business. We have
done this using external support. It is available again on our
website for other organisations, so really the way in which I
would see the issue being addressed is to move in the direction
of a website that acts as a hub to others. I know this is what
is being looked at at the moment. It is one of the things that
is being promoted by the OGC during 2005 and they have started
in that context through OGC Buying Solutions and putting a particular
website together with product guidance on it. There has been a
start made in this respect. It is not just in this respect and
it is not just for purchasers. It is also for suppliers because
the important aspect is that we offer this information to suppliers
so that when they approach government to sell to government they
can reflect the requirements of government policy.
Q159 Mr Challen: Turning to European
legislation, do you think that our guidance from OGC and Defra
fully exploits that legislation? Do we give it the right interpretation?
Do people feel that it limits their choices?
Mr Browne: My experience in presenting
at a number of conference and government working groups is that
there is a misconception out there that the EU procedures stop
you from doing things. There are a lot of things that can be done
within EU procedures, particularly at specification stage. Where
the EU legislation causes some problems is around looking at the
whole production process of a supplier. At present that is difficult
to do within the EU legislation. There are things that can be
done there but it is a barrier in certain aspects.
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