Local government is under sustained pressure to lift its game. Delivering ‘best value’ is the mantra, but ‘how’ is the question.
- Peter Gershon says there is scope for a 2.5% annual efficiency gain.
- Kate Barker’s review of housing supply confirmed the need for a step change in housing supply. Building the infrastructure to cope and working with developers will impose yet more strain on local authorities.
- Sir Christopher Kelly calls for a more systematic and strategic approach to the market in which the public sector operates.
- Local government is expected to facilitate sustainable social and economic development. That means working with local industry to foster businesses that are profitable, able to invest and expand in a sustainable manner.
With so much development at the same time as pressure to improve delivery, officers need a step change in corporate performance to keep up.
Frameworks are one means of achieving best value in construction procurement. And if properly set up and managed, they can increase community wealth through provision of extra resources by profitable local enterprises. The stability offered by framework agreements will promote and sustain social and economic development. Given the finite resources available for capital and maintenance works, frameworks offer better results, but without increasing the budget.
Public sector and utilities
This toolkit gives step-by-step guidance on how to set up and run framework agreements. Although this toolkit was prepared with construction and maintenance work for local government in mind, the principles apply to procurement of any goods, services or works in the public sector and utilities generally. Users will need to check where variations from local government rules and procedures arise.
The process is based on work done by Manchester City Council with the Centre for Construction Innovation (CCI is the centre of Constructing Excellence in the North West).
