Select Committee on Environmental Audit Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 200-219)

9 MARCH 2005

DR GORDON MURRAY, MR COLIN CRAM AND MS KATHERINE COPE

  Q200 Joan Walley: As it is applied by the local authority?

  Dr Murray: Yes.

  Q201 Joan Walley: Can I ask Ms Cope from Camden: obviously you would be putting forward Camden as a local authority with best practice, would you feel that what is being achieved in Camden is significantly greater than, perhaps, in other local authority areas?

  Ms Cope: I think so. I think the success in Camden is that we had the commitment, which Gordon has been talking about, in terms of taking sustainable procurement forward as an initiative. Before the National Strategy came out, we had a number of targets in our Procurement Strategy about sustainability. I was able to be put in post specifically to deal with sustainable procurement, and I think having that designated resource has helped.

  Q202 Joan Walley: You see that as something which other local authorities are doing to the same extent as you in terms of having people in place?

  Ms Cope: I think other local authorities are moving towards having designated people in place and, also, they are moving away from the traditional position of including sustainable procurement under LA 21 and embedding it more into procurement as opposed to having it as a sustainability issue, so it is more of a procurement issue now.

  Q203 Joan Walley: Is that at variance with what Dr Murray said just now in respect of slicing local Agenda 21 with work which is being done by local authorities? Is it that local authorities should be concentrating on whatever succeeds the LA 21 Agenda or is it about, like you say, embedding it into the heart of the chief executive's office or something?

  Ms Cope: I think it is a combination of both. It began within the LA 21 Sustainability Agenda, but it is moving more into procurement. Within local authorities there needs to be a link between environmental and procurement professionals, so they can work together to learn from each other. There are going to be areas within procurement where procurement professionals are not going to understand sustainability and visa versa, so it is a combination of both.

  Q204 Joan Walley: Does that not rather assume that local authorities have an abundance of environmental professionals, when, in fact, it is not always necessarily the case?

  Ms Cope: From my experience, from working with other local authorities, there would be at least one person who was responsible for sustainability or environmental issues, so I think there are enough professionals in place at the moment.

  Dr Murray: What we have got to bear in mind is there are many different councils of many different sizes. The reality of it is there is more likely to be a sustainability person than a procurement person. In a very small district council we would not necessarily expect to find a procurement person, but you are more likely to be able to identify somebody who has sustainability and wants to drive forward that initiative from that perspective. Bigger councils will be putting in place big procurement teams and possibly have somebody who is dedicated to sustainable procurement like, for example, Camden. You cannot generalise that would be the case right throughout local government, that would be an unfair assumption.

  Q205 Joan Walley: Is there a difference between the way Camden does it and the way many local authorities do it?

  Dr Murray: We would say Camden is an exemplar authority. There are many other councils pursuing sustainable procurement who want to do more about sustainable procurement. One of the pieces of evidence we presented to you was that 87% of councils have said, within their procurement strategies, they are addressing sustainable procurement, which would suggest they have got a commitment.

  Q206 Chairman: Can I ask you, Ms Cope, what have been the biggest obstacles you have had to face in taking this Agenda forward within your local authority?

  Ms Cope: Initially, it was probably around some of the perceived barriers in terms of what can or cannot be done and, also, around whether enough products, for example, were out there and the quality of the products, that really was only perceived barriers. Also, there was an issue about change management and getting procurement professionals to work in a different way, which, I think, for any new initiative is always a challenge.

  Q207 Chairman: A lot of people are very set in their ways and have got their network of contacts, have they not, and shifting that is really quite a demanding task?

  Ms Cope: As I said, that was a problem in the beginning, so I put in place a number of training courses, raised awareness, tried to improve communication between the environmental and procurement professionals and now I do not get those sorts of barriers. The sorts of information I am getting back from departments is that they want information on specifications, so they now know they have got to do it and can do it, they just want the tools now to be able to do it.

  Q208 Chairman: Did you hear the evidence the Environmental Agency was giving?

  Ms Cope: Yes.

  Q209 Chairman: This is a question of reducing costs as well as saving the planet, is quite an interesting one, is it not? Do you think you have been good for the budget of local council tax payers as well as being environmentally and socially friendly?

  Ms Cope: Using the stationery contract, for example, I think where there has been some increase in cost by using greener products we have been able to offset that by the way in which we deliver that procurement process. For example, for that particular contract we used an e-reverse auction and by changing the way we delivered that process so we got huge savings. I think that needs to be done also in conjunction, again, with change management. For example, if you are buying recycled paper which might be slightly more and you put in place a programme of raising awareness so people use less paper and double-sided print, again, you are reducing the costs. Sustainable procurement should not be done on its own, it needs to be done in conjunction with other initiatives.

  Q210 Joan Walley: Given what you have just said and the role of the IDA, can I ask how this kind of best practice is shared amongst local authorities, how your organisation promotes that so everybody knows, for example, how Camden has made those changes? How do you disseminate that information?

  Dr Murray: The easiest way we try to do this is to use a proliferation of case studies. Part of our website is dedicated to case studies, which councils can put on themselves about particular issues. This is not the first time we have done a presentation with Camden. Whenever we have been asked to speak at a conference, on a previous occasion, we had the IDA telling one story and almost double-billing with Camden. We would generally try to work like that, we would generally try to work alongside a council, so you have a sort of theoretical type world and then, "here is the real life, this is what somebody has actually being trying to do and what they have achieved". All of our guidance uses case studies.

  Q211 Joan Walley: Do you find it is the same councils coming forward or are interested? What about the councils who are still back in the early beginnings of LA 21 and have not understood that this needs to be embedded at a much more strategic central corporate managerial finance level of the authority?

  Dr Murray: That is an excellent question. The IDA focuses on poor and weak authorities. Councils are graded through a CPA, (a Comprehensive Performance Assessment system). We devote, as much as possible, our resources to the people who are poor and weak. If you were looking for procurement support, we will go and veer to the people who we believe most need attention.

  Q212 Joan Walley: Can I ask how much of that grading of authorities takes into account their performance on sustainable development issues?

  Dr Murray: The Audit Commission would be the people who would be appropriate to discuss that with. From our perspective, our understanding of the new comprehensive performance assessment is it would specifically ask that question and specifically look at the use of resources in that context.

  Q213 Joan Walley: Can I ask you about the technical advice councils have got available to them, where do they get that technical advice from? Is it just from yourselves and websites or how else are they going to be equipped to be able to have a Sustainable Procurement Policy?

  Dr Murray: There was a similar question asked a few minutes ago to the Environment Agency. I struggled with what you meant by technical advice. If it was, "Is this product greener than that other specification?" we believe, at the present time, there is a gap in terms of where you would get that information and we think the Environment Direct Service may help fill that gap. In terms of where they would go for advice about how to embed sustainable procurement within their practice and what can they do at each of the stages of the procurement cycle, their natural port of call would be either to the local Regional Centre of Excellence or the IDA and the guidance is there. There is plenty of availability of where to go to for support.

  Q214 Joan Walley: If any of our local authorities want advice and guidance as to how to go about getting the Sustainable Procurement Policy, you would have that and it would be out there for them to take?

  Dr Murray: Our guidance specifically talks about how to develop a Sustainable Procurement Policy, but if anyone emails Ihelp@IDeA, they get a response within two days telling them how to do it and possibly a house call, as in, we would go to the council and have an appointment set up.

  Q215 Joan Walley: Do you think the quick wins list has been useful to local authorities?

  Dr Murray: The "quick wins" list is not binding on local authorities. We would direct people to that and suggest they use it. Local authorities use organisations called "purchasing consortia" quite a bit. We can see that there has been a trend towards greening the catalogues of the purchasing consortia and we can see that there has been a greater increase in the use of the OGC buying solutions catalogues and so forth, that is definitely taking place. We can see that there is a movement towards greener products, but can we say if the quick wins have been embedded in practice, we would not be in a position to judge it.

  Q216 Joan Walley: Finally, in respect of the criteria you use in terms of procurement, can I ask if there are particular practices, for example, whereby anybody can only be considered if they have been on the list or have been trading for five-year periods? Are there any specific constraints on environmentally friendly contracts and them being able to put themselves forward which you think need to be looked at in any way?

  Dr Murray: Certainly, we would not encourage a council to have somebody who only deals with it who if they've been trading for five years; two years might be a bit more practical. We would look for other areas where you can justify that they have clearly demonstrated their capability to deliver that contract without worry. Looking for years of performance, possibly a restriction to voluntary enterprises and SMEs, we would not see that as a good thing; in fact, we would encourage people to move away from that. Generally we would encourage people to move away from those sorts of approved lists and standing lists which have been on the go for quite some time, maybe they are not as productive or effective as they could be in terms of sustainability. For example, unless you can identify the connection between the subject matter of the contract and the generation of that list, it might not be appropriate to use the list.

  Q217 Mr Chaytor: Before we leave the National Procurement Strategy completely—I have just read through it very quickly during your earlier comments—as far as I can see the word sustainable only appears once and in the Strategy there is absolutely no reference whatsoever to the sort of things which our Committee is particularly interested in, the way in which procurement can reduce the environmental impact of the Government's activities. The use of sustainable is, in this context, that one of the eight objectives of this Strategy is to be sustainable for the communities and areas served, which is as vague as you can possibly get. Is this not a chronic limitation of this document if this is known as the driving force behind what local governments are supposed to be doing?

  Dr Murray: The National Procurement Strategy?

  Q218 Mr Chaytor: Yes.

  Dr Murray: We would argue that chapter six is all about sustainable procurement.

  Q219 Mr Chaytor: Stimulating markets and achieving community benefits?

  Dr Murray: Yes. For example, the employment issue we dealt with, easing access through a selling to guide, the relationship with the community plan, diversity, equality, sustainability, access to community suppliers, sustainability embedded in contract processes and the strategy involving community sector procurement are all addressed. The partnerships have to look at what you are doing with the SMEs and what the impact is. Most people would hold up that chapter and say it was exemplary.


 
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