Procure – creating a good local economy

For the last three years, Preston has been working locally on the topic of community wealth building through procurement, part of a wider social justice agenda promoted by the City Council’s elected leadership, and in particular Councillor Brown. For Preston, the process of procurement is not just about city governments, but a wider set of anchor institutions based within a city or a metropolitan area. Anchor institutions, which include city governments, hospitals, universities and housing organisations, often have significant workforces, significant levels of spending and, more importantly, are unlikely to leave the city. Preston felt that their anchor institutions could enhance their community wealth in the form of jobs and supply chains and therefore enhance the city economy, with procurement a means of enabling this.

Preston was previously a partner in the URBACT ENTER.HUB network (completed April 2015). As a result of participating in this network, the city experienced the benefits of both working in an integrated way to develop urban policies and also the capacity building of local stakeholders that the URBACT framework offers.

Tamar Reay from Preston City Council, previously the Local Project Co-ordinator for ENTER.HUB, and now the Lead Partner Co-ordinator for Procure, saw the opportunity to address the topic of progressive procurement at a European level through an URBACT Action Planning Network, as no other network had tackled this topic on its own before (although a number of networks have explored aspects of procurement specifically relevant to their topic, e.g. sustainable food, electric vehicles).  The idea was supported both by officers and elected officials at the Council.

The main policy challenge to be addressed through the network is how cities can use procurement to bring wider economic, social and environmental benefits to create a good local economy which in turn benefits the residents of their respective cities. These are challenging and opportune times for cities and their local economies.

They are challenging because the economy remains turbulent and there is a need for cities to both grow economically and address longstanding issues, for example around unemployment. However, the global recession of the late 2000s and the subsequent austerity across much of Europe, has resulted in the loss of funding for local governments and restricted their ability to boost the economy through purely financial inputs. They are opportune because cities are having to innovate and find new ways of doing things, particularly in relation to economic development.

Procurement has long been seen as too bureaucratic to enable wider local economic, social and environmental benefit for the city purchasing the goods and services. However, if used effectively, procurement has the potential to stimulate local businesses and SMEs and create jobs and address other issues, for example, around skills. Cities have begun to recognise the power of procurement in ways they previously had not, although the issue for many city governments is understand exactly what they are able to do. It has also meant overcoming challenges such as the culture of procurement officers and city departments and the bureaucratic nature of procurement (both perceived and real), and legislative constraints; although the new EU Directives are assisting with this, with their greater emphasis on procurement supporting SMEs and achieving wider economic, societal and environmental goals.

As stated previously, no other network had previously tackled the topic of progressive procurement. All cities across Europe procure goods and services and implement the EU Directives and adhere to national rules. At the same time, elected officials need to ensure that the economy of their cities grows and their citizens have jobs and a good quality of life. Therefore it made sense to tackle the topic at a European level and the URBACT framework provides the ideal setting for this. An Action Planning network uses a transnational exchange and learning approach for cities to meet and share experiences and learn from each other, and at a local level, local stakeholders are intrinsically involved in the development of an integrated Local Action Plan for their city through the URBACT Local Group.

Therefore the Procure network offers Preston the opportunity to further more innovative procurement practice amongst the anchor institutions based in their city and promote more of a “can do” attitude which in turn will lead to wider local economic, social and environmental benefits. At a network level, Procure will encourage a shift in behaviour in procurement processes and practices in up to 11 other European Cities.

In terms of establishing the initial partnership, Preston sought partners who shared their vision to utilise procurement more innovatively; and also partners at different stages of the journey towards more progressive procurement. So there are cities which are tightly constrained by national level bureaucracy; and cities which have already started undertaking some activity. Preston was also looking for cities which were keen to work with their local anchor institutions to develop ways of using their spending more effectively within the local economy. This led to the involvement of Lublin and Koszalin from Poland; Albacete from Spain; and Almelo from the Netherlands.

The same criteria, along with the wider URBACT requirements, are being used to select further cities for the Procure network. A number of cities have already expressed interest in joining the network and these are currently being assessed. The formal application process is however, still open. Results of the assessment will be discussed with existing partners at the Kick Off meeting in Almelo on 28^th October.

Preston is enthusiastic about the six month development phase and taking the network forward. It is an exciting opportunity to engage both politically with cities with similar outlooks around the importance of procurement and also with cities at different stages of the progressive procurement journey. Timescales are an obvious challenge as there is much to be done before this phase ends mid-March 2016. Keeping focused as progressive procurement is such a broad topic will be equally challenging. Visiting each of the partner cities, however, will bring a clearer understanding and perspective of the issues each of them faces and enable the development of the themes to be explored further in Phase 2.

Harnessing the power of procurement is important for city economies across Europe and Preston as Lead Partner is keen to see how Procure can enable shared results in behaviour change and the adoption of more progressive practices in all the partner cities (including Preston).