The following recommendations are taken from the “Towards a National Strategy for Local Government Procurement” document produced by the Office of the Deputy Prime minister (ODPM).
Recommendation:
The project plan for all major procurements should include a requirement for client managers to be recruited or receive training and development prior to contract award. It should specify the skills needed by the client manager. Whenever possible, client managers should be party to the negotiation of the contract. The skills needed by the client managers should be discussed with potential service providers.
We agree with the Taskforce that arrangements for contract management must be considered at an early stage in the procurement process. This includes consideration of the development needs of service managers and the availability of appropriately trained contract management staff. The training and development needs of service managers and contract management staff need to be considered as part of the process described under Recommendation 14.
The council’s project management procedures should provide for the inclusion of service managers from the client department in project teams and negotiating teams. Within the framework of the local government procurement forum (see Section 3) we will discuss with the supplier community how essential information about the structure, legal, financial and operational environment of councils and their drivers and constraints can best be communicated to operational managers within supplier organisations. This could include secondment as well as professional development.
Service Management and Project management are therefore going to be closely linked, with the staff involved having a requirement to be properly trained. There are a number of disciplines that this could involve. Please call our Account Management Team for further advice.
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