‘Where are we now?'
Status Surveys

Imaginist has established its reputation over the years as one of the leading proponents of best practice in local authority e-procurement.

While leading the supplier adoption strand of ODPM's National e- Procurement Project in 2002-4, we saw that smaller authorities could not go it alone to implement e-procurement and started working with a number of Counties to encourage collaboration. Starting with Essex, we developed a model for surveying the status and attitudes of the sub-regional group of Districts and Boroughs to draw out the opportunities and identify any barriers.

Essex went on to form the Essex Procurement Agency and used this work to develop their constitution and agenda. The model, which uses face-to-face interviews and culminates in the presentation of a report to the group, has been used by a number of other County-based groups of councils and was recently extended to include a whole region for the West Midlands Centre of Excellence.

We recommend undertaking such a survey as a first step to bringing together a group of authorities to develop plans for collaborative procurement. The deliverable is typically a written report and slide presentation that:

• assesses the procurement and e-procurement status of each local authority
• identifies opportunities and barriers to sub-regional collaboration
• recommends a way forward for the group to work together to realise cost savings and efficiency improvements.

If this is a service you need, please contact us to obtain a quote.