HEPA Digest: June 2021 (part 2)

Public Procurement Reform

As highlighted in the previous HEPA Digest the Cabinet Office have recently run two sessions covering the National Procurement Policy Statement, or the “NPPS”.  If you attended either of the sessions you will have heard Lindsay reference a number of recent PPN’s and Playbooks:

• PPN 07/21 provides an update to legal and policy requirements to publish procurement information on Contracts Finder. Part 1 of the guidance replaces PPN 07/16 and it applies to all contracting authorities.  You can find out more on HEPA here.
• PPN 06/21 covers taking account of Carbon Reduction Plans in the procurement of major government contracts. This PPN does not apply to universities but is interesting in its approach and insight into potential future direction of travel.
• The Construction Playbook captures commercial best practice and outlines the Government’s expectations of how contracting authorities and suppliers should engage with each other (as well as detailing some sector specific reforms). You can find out more on HEPA here.
• The Sourcing Playbook and the Consultancy Playbook provide guidance for making sourcing decisions, including specific guidance on sourcing consultancy services and is the result of a collaboration between Government Commercial Function and Government Consulting Hub. Again, you can find out more on HEPA here.

Learning and Development

The Cabinet Office are beginning to plan a learning and development programme to support the implementation of the new public procurement arrangements.

HEPA are working with the Cabinet Office to support this programme on behalf of the sector.

To help shape the learning and development that will aid all those who need to understand the new arrangements, the Cabinet Office are conducting a short survey.  The survey aims to gather valuable insight and information to gauge demand for support across different types of audience, and to also help develop a baseline of levels of awareness and understanding of the reforms.  Please do take the opportunity to provide your views here!

HoP Survey

We are in the process of building the 2021 HEPA Head of Procurement Survey.

This year’s survey will follow-on from the previous 2018 survey and no doubt provide a fascinating insight into the sector, how it has changed and what the future could look like for procurement in higher education. 

HoP’s should keep an eye out for the Surveymonkey link in the coming weeks, and please do get in touch should you have any questions that you think would be a good addition to the survey this year.

Upcoming events and catch-up

• If you missed any of the sessions at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Summit 21 then do not panic – these are now available on catch-up. You can watch the three sessions here.
• Electronics Watch are holding their next webinar exploring “Is there Freedom of Association in Public Sector Supply Chains? Does it Matter?" today on 30 June at 09:00. You can register for the webinar here.
• Many thanks to Nicola Arnold, Sue Weston and Howard Moody for their excellent time to talk covering Jisc on Friday. A recording of the session available here.

Finally, we are delighted to be running a session with Lloyds Bank which will explore the increasing risks facing the Higher Education Sector from Cyber Attacks.  The session is free to attend and takes place via Teams on Tuesday 20 July 2021 from 10.00 - 11.00 AM.  The session will be hosted by Andrew Connors, Head of Higher Education at Lloyds Bank, and Karel Thomas, Executive Director at BUFDG, who will be joined by Giles Taylor, Head of Resilience and Cyber Risk for Commercial Banking at Lloyds Bank, as well as Chief Finance Officer, Alistair Moffat, and Chief Information Officer, David Ford from the University of Hertfordshire who have kindly offered to participate in this session and share their recent experiences of such an event.  This is one not to be missed.  Book your place here.