05 November 2024 
Ashley Shelbrooke, HEPA and Project Specialist
The next set of Head of Procurement meetings are open for members to book via the links below:
< £100m | Tuesday 26 November 2024, 14:00-15:30 | book your place here!
£100m to £200m | Wednesday 27 November 2024, 09:30-11:00 | book your place here!
£200m to £300m | Tuesday 3 December 2024, 10:00-11:30 | book your place here!
£300m to £600m | Tuesday 19 November 2024, 14:00-15:30 | book your place here!
£600m > | Monday 25 November 2024, 09:30-11:00 | book your place here!
Many thanks to all who have already signed up. We have the Cabinet Office lined up to talk through the Procurement Act, and please do feel free to suggest any item(s) that you would like to include on the agenda
HEPA is delighted to be working with the Cabinet Office to provide members with a series of HE specific communities of practice sessions, designed exclusively for members with the content tailored to your needs. Please do let me know what topics you would like these sessions to focus on – no subject is too big or too small!
This is a brilliant chance to hear direct from the Cabinet Office teams on any topics of your choosing in advance of the Procurement Act going live, so please do share and discuss with your teams, and do take the opportunity to feed in to make these sessions as valuable as possible for our HE procurement community.
The Cabinet Office have released a great guide for suppliers covering the Procurement Act 2023. The guide covers the benefits of the Procurement Act from a supplier perspective, as well as information to help suppliers prepare for implementation. You can download the guide to share with your suppliers from the HEPA website here.
The Cabinet Office have also shared a factsheet covering the Central Digital Platform. The resource takes colleagues through what the Central Digital Platform is, what it means for buyers as well as suppliers, timelines, registration, information required and support available. You can download the factsheet from the HEPA website here.
The Procurement Pathway tool has been launched and is available to access here. The tool brings together procurement policy, procurement legislation, commercial best-practice Playbooks, and a suite of standard procurement templates aligned to the commercial lifecycle. An updated briefing pack to support any internal discussions is available on HEPA here (whilst this is aimed at central government departments, the content, specifically the FAQs, may be helpful to colleagues).
Whilst the NPPS survey was open until midday yesterday, in parallel to this the Cabinet Office team have been starting to pull together a draft statement including ideas for the Minister. If you have any particular feedback that you would like to see addressed at a sector level then please do reach out to me direct so I can ensure that this is taken into account.
We are delighted to be running another Time to Talk with The Energy Consortium (TEC) on energy markets. The webinar will take place online next week on Tuesday 12 November 2024 at 10AM, and is open to all. Registration is free of charge, and you can find out more about the event and secure your place here.
As part of their aim to reach net zero for their estates by 2040, Imperial are exploring ways to improve sustainability in research labs through a Sustainability Symposium. A recent workshop with members of Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges (EAUC) and HEPA’s Responsible Procurement group highlighted ways to improve lab sustainability and gathered useful insights that will be taken forward by a lab supply chain working group under the responsible procurement initiative, chaired by Harriet Wallace, Imperial’s Sustainability Director.
Jisc have published an open statement asking software and other suppliers to work with the sector to provide cost-effective solutions. You can read the letter and supporting notes on the Jisc website here.
