Purchasing and procurement

The Council’s annual contract spend is in excess of £20M.  25% of this spend is from businesses with postcodes in Surrey of which 50% are within the Borough.  The contracts let range in size, complexity and value, from one-off purchases to long-term multi-year contracts.

Procurement covers the full lifecycle of buying activities, starting with identification of needs and determining the buying approach, through to evaluation of the supplier offers, purchasing the goods, services or works and the subsequent supplier contract management. 

As a public sector Contracting Authority, the Council is obliged to follow the law as laid out in the Public Contract Regulations 2015 when contracting with third parties.  These Regulations describe the processes and procedures that must be followed to award contracts for goods, works or services.  In addition, part 4 of the Council’s Constitution provides Contract Standing Orders (CSOs) describing additional rules and governance procedures that must be followed to award a contract.  Both the Regulations and CSOs are in place to ensure the principles of procurement are adhered to: Contracting authorities shall treat economic operators equally and without discrimination and shall act in a transparent and proportionate manner.

Quotes or tenders are evaluated to ensure every pound spent represents value for money in terms of both price and quality criteria.  This also includes evaluation of the added value that contracts and suppliers can provide to the local community in terms of social, economic and environmental benefits.