Introduction to Procurement Issues

Working in the ‘Commercial’ market used to be about filling in tender application forms, receiving tenders and trying to achieve the lowest price. While there remains an element of this, the fact is that accessing the market now is a much more fragmented process. Contractors now facilitate and procure over 50% of the major social housing contracts in the UK, the government is pushing forward with the development of purchasing consortia to rationalise the whole procurement process, and partnerships established at the outset of the Rethinking Construction report are now up for renewal in many cases, and under serious review.

Accessing the public sector today takes a great deal of knowledge, commitment and skill. The companies who understand the agendas will benefit from the significant funding which is around, and will play a major role in achieving the Decent Homes Standard, and the Schools for the Future Programme.

The threat for those companies who do not understand the market is that they will miss out on the many opportunities which are around.

On this site there is the latest news on the new government initiative on purchasing consortia, and there are many sources of information available such as ‘Accelerating Change’, and on ‘Rethinking Construction’. Both are available to view in the Information Library.