## Capital Ambition: End Project Report

| Project name                                                                                      | Delivering London Procurement Category Management    |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------|
| CA524                                                                                             | CA reference                                         |
| number                                                                                            |                                                      |
| Release                                                                                           | Final 26 February 2014                               |
|                                                                                                   |                                                      |
| Terry Brewer, Divisional Director, Commercial, Contracts and Procurement, LB Harrow               | Project                                              |
| Manager:                                                                                          |                                                      |
| Mike O'Donnell, Director of Finance, LB Camden                                                    | Project                                              |
| Sponsor:                                                                                          |                                                      |
| Lead Borough:                                                                                     | London Borough of Camden                             |
| All 33 London local authorities, with some additional collaboration with other public bodies both |                                                      |
| within London and in other regions.                                                               |                                                      |
| Participating                                                                                     |                                                      |
| Boroughs                                                                                          |                                                      |
| &organisations                                                                                    |                                                      |
| Revision Date                                                                                     | Author                                               |
| 14June 2013                                                                                       | Andy Hickmott                                        |
| 11 July 2013                                                                                      | Andy Hickmott                                        |
| November 2014                                                                                     | Terry Brewer                                         |
| 19 February                                                                                       | Terry Brewer                                         |
| 26 February                                                                                       | Terry Brewer                                         |
|                                                                                                   |                                                      |

Executive Summary The Capital Ambition funding that made this project possible has led to both significant cashable savings and an enduring legacy of behavioural change and reusable assets. In this paper it is possible to provide only a brief overview of the background and outcomes of the project. More information is contained in the appendices, and further is available from the project participants on request. Background The London Procurement Strategy Board (LPSB) was formed to assess, *inter alia*, what opportunities exist to take a strategic view of third party spend across the London boroughs of nearly £9bn to achieve savings and efficiencies. A 
major component of the LPSB work is to locate procurement decision making at the right organizational level - either devolved to individual councils, or aggregated at sub-regional (e.g. East London), regional (i.e. the whole of London) or national level. In 2011 the LPSB identified six categories of spending that could potentially be purchased cheaper were councils to aggregate their requirements  and buy them collectively: 
 

Category 
ESTIMATED 2011/12 
spend (ProClass) 
Agency (Human Resources) 
£500m 
Adult Social Care 
£1,900m 
Children's Social Care Construction (Works) 
£1,700m 
Facilities Management 
£350m 
ICT 
£500m 
Total 
£4,950m 

 In October 2011 the Capital Ambition board approved a request by the LPSB for revenue grant funding of £150,000 to enable the appointment of lead authorities, and to fund their development of collaborative category strategies and costed implementation plans. The funding award was confirmed in an offer to LB Camden on 1 November 2011. Subsequently, the remaining budget of an unfinished project to establish a pan-London relationship with Northgate was transferred from Enfield to Camden to be combined with this project, bringing total funding up to £180,000. 

 
The LPSB invited any individual London authorities and sub-regional associations who wished to lead the work on a particular category to put forward their costed proposals. Bids were evaluated on both the quality of the submitted plan and the expected return on investment, an proportion was hypothecated to address legal aspects of naming authorities when procuring framework contracts, and funds were allotted accordingly as follows: 
 

| Category                    | Lead authority / sub-region    | Funding    |
|-----------------------------|--------------------------------|------------|
| Agency                      | LB Bromley                     | £5,000     |
| Adult Social Care           | West London Alliance           | £25,000    |
| Children's Social Care      | East London Solutions          | £60,000    |
| Construction                | LB Haringey                    | See below  |
| ICT(includes Northgate SRD) | LB Camden                      | £80,000    |
| Programme office            | LB Camden                      | £25,000    |
| Legal Counsel               | LB Camden / LPS Board          | £10,000    |
| Total                       |                                | £150,000   |

 No bids were received in respect of the Facilities Management category. No funding was allocated to the Construction category because work being led by LB Haringey is self-funding (by rebate). Legal counsel opinion was sought on the naming of parties to framework agreements as a common enabler across all category projects.  The outcomes of the work on each of the category areas are set out below Agency category LB Bromley led work on the Agency category. Bromley's proposal was to map available frameworks to existing supply arrangements to identify which procurement channels would best suit future category demand. In carrying out this work Bromley expected to establish protocols, communication channels and demand management models suited to future needs, and to determine the appropriate degree of aggregation for each aspect of category management. 

Bromley's bid was favoured in part because of the expertise of its proposed project manager, Bromley's Corporate Procurement Manager, who has extensive experience in this area. The key outcome from this project was a report delivered to the LPSB in October 2012. This identified £300m of spending on agency staff across London. All London boroughs make use of agency staff, but the procurement arrangements are fragmented and multiple contracts with at least ten different suppliers were identified. However, not all boroughs responded to requests for information, so there could be more. The report gave evidence that a collective approach would result in lower mark-ups and a reduction in duplication, and recommended a regional (pan-London) 
aggregation of spend management, with demand management being handled by individual boroughs. It recommended a further joint procurement under the MSTAR framework.   In the end 18 boroughs collaborated to use the MSAR arrangement;  between them it is estimated that the participating boroughs saved some £9m through this work. Adult Social Care category 
 
West London Alliance (WLA) led work on the Adult Social Care (ASC) category. WLA's proposal was based on further development and wider use of 'CarePlace' a new web-based application developed by the Alliance itself. 'CarePlace' provides borough adult social care staff with easy to access, up-to-date information on care services and prices within the market. 'CarePlace' also provides up to date contract management, financial and monitoring reports based on data collected from the participating borough IT systems. This data is used to support the boroughs to gain better prices from the market when purchasing services.  The key benefits 'CarePlace' delivers are: -           real time reporting tools using the latest software to assist senior management with tracking and addressing the budget reduction implications across boroughs; 
-           an online EU compliant procurement process tool; -           control over purchasing functions through managing a centralised approved list; 
-           provider supplied details of vacancies and services;  
-           a comprehensive directory of services, maintained by suppliers as free advertising and publicly available; -           web-based sharing of inspection and monitoring information; -           improved flow of communication 'CarePlace' is helping West London bring together the demand of services from boroughs and the supply of services from the market, ensuring better value placements for boroughs and more efficient processes for providers. All WLA 
boroughs have adopted CarePlace; in addition a number of other boroughs have also adopted it, these being Bromley, Camden and Islington.  Richmond and Lambeth have signed the SLA and Haringey and Enfield are in the process of signing. 

Children's Social Care category East London Solutions (ELS) led work on the Children's Social Care category. ELS's proposal highlighted £31m of savings that had already been achieved over the previous three years through London Care Services, but suggested more needed to be done to raise awareness and prevent rogue spending, and thus to increase savings. It also proposed an analysis of aspects of Childcare not addressed by London Care Services, pointing to 5% savings that had been achieved on domiciliary care by one sub-region - indicating savings to be made from identifying and sharing best practice. A project manager was appointed in June 2012 and began working on the project at the end of August. Unfortunately, this person became ill and had to be replaced, the new project manager only taking up the post at the start of March 2013. The project presented its final report to the LPSB in September 2013. Key priority actions proposed include: 

- 
Training & Development 
- 
Travel training 
- 
A common set of minimum standards for 16+ accommodation; and 
- 
The London Children's Commissioning and Procurement Network. 
 The main focus of the project has been the re-classification of ProClass Categories so that spending on Children's Services can be distinguished from spending on Adult Social Care. This will break down the current level 2 category of 'Children', which accounts for £85m of spending, to provide better information of what is driving this spending and what is being purchased from whom.It will also identify how much of the £82m of undifferentiated spending on social care is for Children, and how much for Adults, and again break this down into greater detail. The new category structure will use terms familiar to practitioners, so that information can be captured more reliably and acted in with confidence. This work was agreed across London and the Chair of Heads of London Network presented the outcomes to the LGA National Advisory Group for Procurement for national endorsement; this was approved and has now been adopted as the national ProClass coding structure for the Children's category.   This has prompted further work to be undertaken nationally on the ProClass coding for the Adults category and a discussion at the LGA National Advisory Group on the governance for the ProClass coding structure. The London Children's Commissioning and Procurement Network was launched on 23 September 2013 at an all day conference/event; the aim is that the Network will become an established forum for commissioners and procurement staff to discuss shared issues. Construction category 
 
The London Construction Programme (LCP) was launched as a key project sponsored by the London Procurement Strategy Board February 2012 at an event held in Alexandra Palace.The LCP is self-funding through framework levies and fees paid by exhibitors at events. (A first-year anniversaryevent attracted 100 delegates and 33 exhibitors.) The ethos of the LCP is to facilitate a network of partner organisation that are willing and able to procure Pan London frameworks using an agreed standard OJEU notice and to provide post award support over the life cycle of the framework.OJEU notices for new frameworks for asbestos surveying and removal, major works, and electrical / mechanical / landscape architectural services were advertised in March 2013. Wider collaborations with adjacent regions (south-east and south-west) are under discussion. The frameworks are widely adopted. A framework for construction consultancy, which was let on behalf of London's 33 local authorities and other London public bodies including the GLA, emergency services, educational establishments, social housing providers and the NHS, has been adopted by 14 local authorities, 4 ALMOs and the Metropolitan Police. 

 
The LCP has established good traction and has its own website which can be viewed at http://lcp.g2b.info.  Work is progressing on establishing a series of construction framework agreements that will be open to boroughs and the wider public sector.  It is planned that the OJEU notices for these will be published in November 2014. 

ICT category The London Borough of Camden led on the ICT category. Camden's proposal was to work closely with Chief Information Officers, the Government Procurement Service (GPS (now the Crown Commercial Service - CCS) and the Pro5 buying organizations to better understand the ICT market and find savings through renegotiation and collective procurement. 

The proposal built on a previous draft plan prepared jointly by Camden and Enfield. Its aim was to identify savings (predominantly cashable) of 5% that can be realized by the end of 2013
/14. 

 
CCS agreed to provide a programme manager for 15 months (to March 2013) giving London boroughs unprecedented access to CCS's wider resources including category specialists, frameworks and links to central government. Camden provided accommodation and additional project resource and programme office. A steering board was quickly established which comprised some of London's most prominent CIOs and Procurement leaders. Priority projects were identified in May 2012 through wider consultation. These included: 

- 
A collaborative competition involving 16 boroughs to award concessions to use council street furniture to 
mount wireless telecoms equipment. So far, 12 boroughs haveawarded.   The deal will result in boroughs 
receiving several millions in income over the 10 year concession period.   
- 
A strategic approach to datacentre consolidation. An outline approach was agreed by CIOs in March 2013 and 
presented by the CIO of LBs Newham and Havering to the London ICT Programme Board on 7 May. Additional support for a programme of consolidation has been obtained from LGfL and PSN/Virgin Media. A project commenced in July 2013 to do a complete audit of London's datacentre provision so that opportunities for consolidation can be progressed more proactively. 
- 
Meta-analysis of ProClass spend data identified far greater commonality of spend than was evident in the 
original data. It showed there were 1,547 ICT suppliers in 2010/11 (the most recent data available at the time), of which 17 were used by at least half of all boroughs, and only 13 accounted for 50% of the spend. 
- 
A detailed 'map' of key line-of-business software applications was produced, and it showed that many of the same applications were run by multiple councils, leading to duplication of procurement, licensing, infrastructure and support. Under the leadership of the CIO of LB Haringey a series of well attended workshops 
considered ways to reduce the cost of these systems. Discussions are still under way with suppliers, including a discussion with Northgate about their providing a managed service to 16 LB users of their Revenues software. 
- 
The Northgate relationship development project was resumed and expanded to include Capita, Civica, Corelogic, Idox and OLM. A project manager was recruited and negotiation teams formed comprising CIOs and purchasers from major LB customers of each supplier. Outcomes so far include reduced consultancy rates from 
Northgate, which are expected to save London boroughs ~£150k pa (and over £1m nationally); agreements 
with Capita and Idox to freeze prices (not to apply inflation indexation), saving an estimated £70k pa; an 'offer' 
from Idox to allow the free use of all their APIs - a significant benefit at a time of great pressure to integrate applications. Other savings are still under discussion. 
- 
Increased participation in e-auctions was encouraged, and as a result 5 LBs took part in a mobile telecom eauction which saved an average of 50% on previous prices, a cash saving of £290k pa. 
- 
A web portal was developed by LB Camden to enable the secure distribution of commercial information and for 
sharing project documents. This has worked remarkably well and was a key enabler for the wireless concession project; driving adoption of the Northgate, Capita and Idox savings; and increasing awareness of e-auction 
possibilities. We are now exploring options with LGA to create a similar portal to support a national programme. 
In conclusion, ICT category management has radically changed the ICT landscape in London and is influencing the future of ICT procurement nationally. CCS has now committed to extend the programme manager's tenure and has created two additional full-time posts within London. These are accountable to London's ICT Programme Board, which is also being retained as a valuable forum for real decision-making.  This programme has made a real mark, helped bring down costs in London, and leaves in place a significant legacy. 

As a result of the work undertaken in London LGA National Advisory Group for Procurement London representative and the London ICT category lead - was tasked with extending the London ICT Programme on a national scale to drive market management, develop new digital models of service delivery and deliver policy through procurement. The National ICT Category Management Programme  will deliver: 
- 
strategic commercial co-ordination of £2.2bn annual national Local Government ICT expenditure to drive a sustainable 10% to 20% range annualised cash-reduction over the next five years; 

- 
a leveraged programme of technology innovations and improvements driven by Local Authority CIO requirements and delivered through ICT supply chains nationally, enabling improved citizen services, localism and SME market access. 
A table showing the key areas of work that will be undertaken is set out below.  London boroughs will benefit from this further work that is being undertaken and demonstrates a true legacy from the work in this CAB funded category. 

 

| PROJECT                                                  | Opportunity    | Estimated Benefit     |
|----------------------------------------------------------|----------------|-----------------------|
| Local                                                    | Authority      |                       |
| Software                                                 | Application    |                       |
| Framework                                                |                |                       |
| Development                                              |                |                       |
| Aim to support building of a strong consensus across a   |                |                       |
| complex stakeholder group (including heads of service)   |                |                       |
| and drive a fundamental change in market behaviours to   |                |                       |
| get the right commercial outcomes in place.              |                |                       |
|                                                          |                |                       |
| Local                                                    | Authority      |                       |
| Software                                                 | Application    |                       |
| Framework Delivery                                       |                |                       |
| Encouraging the take up of the LASA framework in order   |                |                       |
| to reduce the enabling technology costs associated with  |                |                       |
| key LA business processes.                               |                |                       |
| Supplier Relationship                                    |                |                       |
| Development                                              |                |                       |
| Commercial MoU arrangements and / or better              |                |                       |
| implementation of existing contracts and frameworks      |                |                       |
| Data Hosting                                             |                |                       |
| Reduce expenditure through the sharing of existing       |                |                       |
| assets, personnel and a collaborative commercial         |                |                       |
| approach.                                                |                |                       |
| Wireless Concession                                      |                |                       |
| Share Camden documents with any Local Authority          |                |                       |
| working alone or as a group to deliver wireless          |                |                       |
| concession agreements. To be led at local or regional    |                |                       |
| level.                                                   |                |                       |
| eAuctions                                                |                |                       |
| Deliver significant savings by enabling organisations to |                |                       |
| aggregate their commodity requirements and maximize      |                |                       |
| buying power.                                            |                |                       |
| ICT                                                      | Council        |                       |
| Framework                                                |                |                       |
| Awareness                                                |                |                       |
| Review available public sector framework usage locally   |                |                       |
| and then help to identify opportunity gaps for framework |                |                       |
| adoption.                                                |                |                       |
| TOTAL                                                    |                |                       |
| Sum of all projects above.                               | £176m - £120m  | Oct 13 - Apr 17       |
|                                                          |                |                       |
|                                                          |                |                       |
|                                                          |                |                       |
Duration 
Oct 13 - April 14 
Vehicle to build ICT category 
management 
networks, 
relationships 
and consensus across all key customer and supplier stakeholders. ~£75-£50m 
framework 
April 2014-April 2017 
cost 
savings 
and 
a 
further 
demand 
saving/cost 
avoidance 
saving 
of~ 
£20-£15m 
over two to three years. £5m-£3m. 
Access 
to 
Jan 14 - Jan 15 
senior Supplier Board Directors. ~£60m-£40m 
Jan 13-Jan 15 
~£6m-£4m/pa  
Jan 14 - Jan 15 
~£10m-£8m/ pa 
Jan 14-Jan 15 
Relationship 
building. 
Jan 14 - Jan 15 
Understanding 
local 
priorities and category spend analysis. 

## Achievement Of Project Objectives

|    |    |    | Objectives in PID    | Achieved    |
|----|----|----|----------------------|-------------|
| (  | Y  | or | N                    | )           |

"To oversee the development and implementation of appropriate category management strategies for those categories not already in delivery mode. This could include: 

- 
Adult Social Care 
Y 
 
Bids were sought from sub-regions 
to lead individual category projects. LPSB allocated funding to the strongest bids: 
- 
Agency - LB Bromley 

- 
Children's Social Care 
- 
Construction 
- 
ICT 
- 
Facilities Management 
- 
Temporary Agency Staff" 
"The initial procurement and development of [individual] category management strategies and implementation plans and the associated data analyses and consultation activities required to ensure ownership and buy-in" 

| Y                     |
|-----------------------|
| management            |
| strategies and costed |
| implementation        |
| plans                 |

To validate and enable "cashable savings estimated in the LPS (London Procurement Strategy) as a potential 40% of the £8.9bn third party spend across London." (Only for identified categories.) 

| Y                                               | Better assessment of    |
|-------------------------------------------------|-------------------------|
| ASC and agency                                  |                         |
| spending;                                       |                         |
| Standardized ICT                                |                         |
| spending analysis                               |                         |
| Y                                               | National MOU with       |
| Northgate                                       |                         |
| Following transfer of funding from CA503        |                         |
| (Northgate Supplier Relationship                |                         |
| Development), to "challenge Northgate to        |                         |
| deliver immediate improvements in cost that     |                         |
| deliver measurable cost savings"                |                         |
| Performance against planned End date&Investment |                         |
|                                                 | Agreed                  |
| £179,736                                        | None                    |
| Total CA                                        |                         |
| Investment                                      |                         |
| £150,000 plus                                   |                         |
| £29,736 from                                    |                         |
| CA503                                           |                         |
| End Date                                        |                         |
|                                                 |                         |
| March 2013                                      | July 2013               |
| 4 months'                                       |                         |
| delay                                           |                         |
|                                                 |                         |
| Approved Change                                 |                         |
| Request (description)                           |                         |
| Effect on original                              |                         |
| schedule                                        |                         |
| Effect on Business Case                         |                         |
| (Costs / Benefits)                              |                         |
| Transfer of £29,736                             |                         |
| from CA 503 (Northgate                          |                         |
| Supplier Relationship                           |                         |
| Development)                                    |                         |
| None (although work                             |                         |
| funded by London                                |                         |
| Councils was still in                           |                         |
| progress until April)                           |                         |
| Positive: Potential                             |                         |
| savings estimated in                            |                         |
| the range £600-1200k                            |                         |
| pa.                                             |                         |
| Relevant Products                 |
|-----------------------------------|
| objectives / products link to the |
| major benefits & Lessons Learnt   |

- 
ASC - West London Alliance 
- 
Children's SC - East London Solutions 
- 
ICT - LB Camden 

 
Work by LB Haringey on construction required no further funding. No bids were received for FM. Allocation was agreed to offer best potential ROI. £35k was set aside to fund a parttime programme office and obtain legal counsel on naming restrictions in framework contracts. 
Category plans presented to LPSB and are now in implementation stages. Each category has undergone extensive consultation and validation. 
Awaiting analysis of Children's social care spending in forthcoming strategy. 
Other agreements with Capita, 
Civica and Idox to follow. 
One sub-project (Children's Social Care) was delayed because illness of the original project manager meant a replacement had to be found. 
Impacts on project scope / objectives Required the recruitment of an additional project manager, eliminated overlap between the two projects. 
Project benefits& assets produced 
Benefits / assets 
Link to product if applicable 
1 
Agency Staff Category Management Strategy 
 
 
2 
Adult Social Care Category Management Strategy 
 
 
3 
Children's Social Care Category Management Strategy 
 
ICT Project Outcomes: 
 
 
4 
Standardized ICT spending analysis for 2010-11 
 
 
5 
London software application landscape detailing common line-of-business application 
6 
National MOU with Northgate Information Solutions (similar MOU in place with Northgate Arinso) 
7 
Case study demonstrating £300k pa savings across 
six local authority participants in a telecoms eauction 
8 
OJEU notice concerning Wireless Concession awards 
 
Expected July 2013 
9 
Offer of resources to continue and expand London ICT Programme from Government Procurement Service 
10 Draft ICT Category Management Strategy 
 
Draft for info only. Final version due July 2013. 
11 London ICT portal 
http://bit.ly/LondonICT 
(login required) 
 
Please sign below: 

Project Manager's Details: 

 Name: 
Terry Brewer, Divisional Director, Commercial, Contracts and Procurement London Borough of Harrow 
Signature: 
 
Project Sponsor's Details: 
Name: 
Mike O'Donnell, Director of Finance, London Borough of Camden / Chair of the London Procurement Strategy Board 
Signature: 
 
 
Comment  
 
Expected July 2013 

## Outstanding Risks And Issues

| RAG Scores                                             | scores 1-4,    |  scores 5-8,    |  scores 9-16.   |     |
|--------------------------------------------------------|----------------|-----------------|-----------------|-----|
| Description of Risk / Issue & impact on project legacy | Likelihood     |                 |                 |     |
| (1-4)                                                  |                |                 |                 |     |
| Impact                                                 |                |                 |                 |     |
| (1-4)                                                  |                |                 |                 |     |
| RAG                                                    |                |                 |                 |     |
| Likelihood                                             |                |                 |                 |     |
| x Impact                                               |                |                 |                 |     |
|                                                        |                |                 |                 |     |
|                                                        |                |                 |                 |     |

Any further comments: 

Action to resolve  

## What Worked Well—Or Didn'T Work Well—Either For This Project Or For The Project Team, And What Are Your Real World Recommended Solutions?

Several issues emerged from the work: 

- 
Data of limited quality.  Whilst spend data has been collected for some years from boroughs and has provided 
useful information in terms of identifying areas that need to be tackled, it has had limited value in that it is useful only as a sign posting tool.   Greater granularity is required in the spend data to enable more detailed analysis to be undertaken of spend within particular categories.   
 
- 
London is missing out on savings opportunities by not sharing pricing information on contracts.  Contractors encourage boroughs not to share prices often saying that 'you've got a really good deal, don't tell the others as I can't offer this to everyone'.  In reality where similar services are bought across boroughs only one borough has got the best deal and even that is likely not to be as good as that achieved by the private sector. Sharing of prices should be the norm to ensure that boroughs to not permit contractors to apply wide differential pricing strategies to different public sector customers.  
 
- 
Strategic relationship management.  There are 20 to 30 key contractors that account for a very large proportion of the total third party spend by boroughs.  These contractors are managed on an individual basis 
by boroughs; there is very little strategic London-wide management of such providers.  The work on the ICT 
category has demonstrated that calling in such providers for strategic pan-London discussions can have 
beneficial outcomes.  
 
- 
Resources; it is clear that where funding is provided to undertake category work this needs to be sustained over a long term basis.  A grant for say £30K will enable an experienced interim to be brought in for 3 or 4 months at London prices to take work forward but momentum is very quickly lost once the funding ends as permanent staff are rarely in a position to be able to take on the additional work  needed to maintain the impetus.   Where funding has allowed resources to be deployed over a much longer term such as for 
construction, energy and ICT this has enabled  more broad ranging work to be undertaken and outcomes achieved.   
 
- 
Without a mandate or clear direction 'from the top', collaboration works best where services are seen to be 'commoditised' (e.g. agency staff) or where there is a new requirement such as in the case of the wireless concession contract.  These aside, service based contracts typically have long planning horizons and particular difficulties can be experienced when the replacement or renewal of contracts have widely divergent 
termination dates. Boroughs with tight renewal dates often had to withdraw from collective processes and 
undertake a separate procurement of their own or extend their existing contract to protect services. 
 
 
Solutions and recommendations for future projects: Data:  Following discussions between Heads of Procurement, London Councils and CCS, CCShave facilitated the development of a proposal to use the Bravo expenditure analysis tool.  This arrangement will provide a quality spend analytics service with greater data granularity, paid for by London Councils from within existing budget and therefore at no additional cost to boroughs. . All boroughs have signed up to participate in this arrangement and work is ongoing to roll this out.  In the medium to long term this will provide data on a much firmer and more granular basis on which to base strategic procurement decisions. Pricing transparency:  There are 2 elements to this: firstly there is a need to encourage all boroughs to include clauses in their contracts that make it clear to bidders that their pricing information will be shared with other councils.  The second is to establish a process whereby councils can post pricing data on to a portal to enable them to benchmark their data against those of others.   Some very initial discussions have been held with TfL to explore taking this forward. Strategic relationship management (SRM):  the ICT category project has shown the benefits of taking a strategic and holistic view of key suppliers in London.  This programme needs to be extended to other category areas/suppliers to seek to gain similar benefits. One option might be for each borough should take lead London client responsibility for one key supplier on behalf of all boroughs.   Another option may be to establish a pan-London team to assume this role (see Resources section below) Resources:  Rather than spreading funding across a number of projects it is preferable to fund one or two projects really well to ensure they get the necessary momentum and longevity needed to ensure success.  For example the Children's category project did not have sufficient funds to ensure that the good work that was undertaken could be continued.   Consideration needs to be given as to whether there might be an opportunity to create a London procurement category team who could take forward work on a range of categories and to follow up on some of the issues set out above e.g. SRM, data analysis and pricing transparency.  This could possibly be funded by the equivalent of half a post per borough which would provide up to 15 staff to drive forward this work at a far faster pace than could otherwise be achieved.   This approach may also assist with the 'mandate from the top' issue as it would encourage boroughs to have more buy in to the outcomes of the team's work.   

## What Surprises Did The Team Have To Deal With, And How Did You Resolve These? The Loss Of The Children'S Social Care Category Project Manager Had A Very Significant Impact On Project Timescales. While This Was Recognized At The Outset As A Risk, It Too Several Months To Source A Replacement, And Then There Were Financial Difficulties Around The New Manager'S Release On Secondment To Work On The Project. Reliance On Secondment Has Proved Difficult And Time-Consuming. What Overall Lessons Were Learnt And Do You Have Any Further Recommendations For Future Projects?

The most glaring lesson to be learned from this project is the difference that can be made when key resources can be committed to a project over a significant period. In particular, the ICT and Construction projects are excellent examples of how traction and momentum can be maximized by the creation of a dedicated team, supported and reinforced by effective leadership and governance. A key lesson learned has been the need to have good engagement with the key stakeholders in the category area concerned.  In the case of ICT a governance structure was established which involved representatives from the CIO community including the Chair of London Connects so that rather than procurement actions being 'done' to them they have felt in control of the agenda.  In this way issues have been pursued that are not solely procurement related such as seeking to obtain open systems and data centre hosting issues that may not have been addressed otherwise but have the potential for delivering considerable benefits.   LPSB have recognised the benefits of this and are currently considering undertaking 'deep dives' into particular categories in conjunction with the key Service leads so that joint work can be taken forward. 

From a wider perspective, LPSB is supporting related projects which build on the legacy of the Capital Ambition work. These include a London Category Management Mapping project, migration to a single portal for advertising procurement opportunities (CompeteFor) and adoption of the CCS/ Bravo Spend Analytics service in collaboration with London Councils.