London Borough of Waltham Forest Brochure 2018

LONDON BOROUGH OF WALTHAM FOREST COUNCIL

Sharing services, transforming lives

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LONDON BOROUGH OF WALTHAM FOREST COUNCIL

Creating value through innovation WRIT TEN BY

CATHERINE S TURM AN PRODUCED BY

RICHARD DURR ANT

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As the demands on Council budgets rise, local Councils have embraced shared services in procurement to help deliver value for money and enhance return on investment

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roviding an array of services, from adult social care, housing, environmental and leisure services, education and vocational training, and

more, London Borough of Waltham Forest supports more than a quarter of a million citizens in northeast London.

Encompassing a multifarious portfolio, its procurement division has subsequently faced a number of challenges 04

amidst a changing economic climate.

Moving from central to local government services, via a quango, Director of Supply Chain, Dave Levy, has been a key figure in the public sector procurement industry for more than two decades. With a passion for delivering effective public services through procurement and supplier relationships and adding value across its services, he has led the borough’s procurement service for nearly 10 years.

Over the last two years his role has broadened to include contract management, business intelligence, insurance and risk, as well as its corporate complaints team.

“Procurement takes up the bulk of my time, but I also run a shared procurement service with another London borough, Redbridge. I have had to change the way that public sector procurement behaves,” he says.

“Procurement used to be very much focused on compliance, process, following regulations – those days are gone.

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Of course, that is still needed but the emphasis now is on people that have a bit of commercial know-how, can identify opportunities and deliver on those, influence service redesign and undertake more effective supply chain management.�

As public procurement moves away from process and towards attracting those with a range of skills, automation and new digital tools will further revolutionise the industry. Utilising electronic tendering and spend analytics more effectively will further impact the ways in which traditional services are delivered. w w w.wa l t ha mfo re st. g ov. u k

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“ The transformation of procurement from a transactional back office function when I arrived to a strategic support service is testament to the ambitions of the authorities and also a credit to the staff” — David Levy Director of Supply Chain

“When I joined procurement, it was very much around process and compliance.

That has changed. Now it’s about making sure we deliver the added value,” he adds.

“Making sure we deliver outcomes, that we deliver social value through our contracts and other essential policies.

This includes paying the London living wage and eradicating modern slavery throughout the supply chain. That is why it’s important that that we’ve got people within the organisation that have the know-how to make this happen.”

Creating the first local authority shared procurement function in the

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘MOMENTS IN RECYCLE IN WALTHAM FOREST’ 07 Capital with the north London borough

where there may be examples where

of Enfield in 2011, the council has taken

one borough has done something

all lessons learnt and applied the learning

innovative or even something that’s

from that arrangement to develop its

not quite worked and use that to inform

partnership with Redbridge. Whilst

solutions at the other borough.

local authorities continue to struggle

Sometimes the benefits of joint working

to recruit and retain talent, its shared

are less obvious, but the simple efficiency

service has enabled the two boroughs

benefits of doing something once, there’s

to look at its procurement activities and

a potential financial benefit. There’s also

formulate joint arrangements to drive

a cost benefit in sharing experiences,

long-term advantages.

learning and maximising efficiency.

“We’ll look at economies of scale where

“This is where I am most proud,

possible in areas such as indirect spend

delivering the shared service with

but we can also learn from each borough.

Enfield and later with Redbridge. The

For example, in areas such as social care,

transformation of procurement from w w w.wa l t ha mfo re st. g ov. u k

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“ As the demands on budgets rise, local Councils have embraced shared services in procurement to help deliver value for money and enhance return on investment.”

— David Levy, Director of Supply Chain

a transactional back office function

partnership with the client service

when I arrived to a strategic support

areas to deliver contracts and supports

service is testament to the

all associated strategic supply chain

ambitions of the authorities

relationships. Additionally, he developed

and also a credit to the staff

the council’s Contract Management

who deliver on a day

Framework, setting out key standards

to day basis. We buy everything

relating to contract reviews, risk manage-

from paperclips to education,

ment, issue management and planning.

social care and new buildings.

There aren’t many jobs where you get involved in so many diverse areas.”

“Most contracts are managed operationally by leads within service areas, so the client department will manage those contracts. If it’s a strategic

Managing all procurement

contract, if it’s one of our key partners,

activities for anything over the EU

then we get involved from a commer-

threshold, Levy’s team works in

cial perspective,” he explains.

E X E C U T I V E P R OF IL E

David Levy, Director of Supply Chain David Levy is an experienced strategic procurement and contract management practitioner. He is a change agent responsible for transforming procurement functions and delivering savings.

David’s specialities span procurement, contract management, team development, programme management, project management, local and central government and category management.

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How Did We Help Waltham Forest?

Matrix SCM help private organisations, local councils, and other Government bodies deliver and maintain vital services by supplying temporary and permanent staff.

Our market-leading solutions include Neutral Vendor Managed Services, technology-only approaches to support in-house teams, or Hybrid ‘Blended’ models.

The London Borough of Waltham Forest partnered with Matrix SCM since 2012 and achieved recruitment savings in excess of £5.4m through our Neutral Vendor Managed Service model.

Reducing costs by 8% to 12%, maintaining 99.6% fulfilment rates, and guaranteeing workers are 100% compliant.

Get In Touch To See How We Can Help You Please contact Chris Grimes on 0844 372 1534 or visit www.matrix-scm.com for more information.

“ When I joined procurement, it was very much around process and compliance.That has changed. Now it’s about making sure we deliver the added value” — David Levy Director of Supply Chain

“We still have operational meetings and they’ll manage the service and contract on a day-to-day basis but on the strategic side, we’ll get involved to ensure that the overall objectives of that contract are met, that there is alignment at a strategic level between both parties and deal with any commercial issues that arise.”

The council is keen to driving continuous improvement and efficiency through technology. An example of this is their contract with Matrix.

“In terms of our innovative procurement methods and technology, Matrix is one

of the council’s strategic suppliers, spending up to £20mn (US$26.1mn) per annum on agency staff. We have worked successfully with them for a number for years now, where they act as a neutral vendor and source our requirements from their supply chain. The source to pay process is fully electronic with CVs, timesheets and invoicing all handled within the system with appropriate financial approvals built into the workflow.

As our needs have changed over time Matrix has worked in partnership with the council to develop a hybrid solution

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with tailored supply chains for different job types e.g. hard to fill areas,” says Levy.

“We have also implemented a number

Whilst all local authorities in London

of Dynamic Purchasing Systems (DPS)

have adopted an electronic tendering

using AdamHTT to enable a fully

system, the council has adopted

electronic, EU compliant, sourcing

a collaborative e-tendering system

solutions for social care (homecare),

which undertakes all associated

special educational needs transport,

procurement activities.

temporary accommodation and most

“Whether you are after a quote for

recently, Specialist Professional

£10,000, or you’re going after a multi-

Services. This last category is an

million-pound contract, it all goes through

innovative approach to buying consul-

that system and ultimately published

tancy and covers 20 categories of

on our contracts register. It ensures

professional services. It is also open to

transparency and allows potential

the wider public sector and provides

suppliers to bid for contract opportuni-

a more effective alternative to procuring

ties across the Capital,” he adds.

consultancy than traditional frameworks.” w w w.wa l t ha mfo re st. g ov. u k

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London boroughs adopted the London Tender Portal

1st For shared business

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function — North London Borough

250,000

People supported by London Borough of Waltham Forest

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In such a mature market, collabora-

stand the markets in which it operates.

tion has, therefore, become vital to

Investing in digital product Atamis has

enable more effective sourcing of goods

allowed data to be explored fully to

and services. 23 London boroughs

identify opportunities, where the council

have subsequently adopted the London

has looked closely at its categories and

Tender Portal, where suppliers can

transform its supply chain management

sign up, pick sectors of interest and

capabilities.

will receive an alert when a local auth-

“For example, we could look at price

ority has an opportunity and bid for

differentials for the same product or

new prospects.

service. We might have areas where

Bringing on board new digital tools

we’ve not got much in the way of a local

has enabled the council to transform

supply chain, and look at what we can

its spend analytics and further under-

do to help that. We use spend analytics

“There’s a lot more we can do with spend data through our business intelligence side, such as cross-matching service performance data, with spend and budget data. We can then explore for example, if we have a really high performing function What are we spending on that? What outcomes are being delivered? Is it underpinned by lots of contracts? I think this would be really valuable in the future in determining our ROI. “We’ve been approaching this over the summer doing a proof of concept with Cloudwick and Amazon Web Services, using things like natural language processing and machine an awful lot, but there’s a lot more that

learning to identify the potential use of

we can do with it,” he says.

such tools to help us deliver services

“Public sector bodies have to publish spend of £250 plus a month, and there

more effectively.”

Levy is eager to enhance capacity

are companies out there that will do

and capability across the organisa-

analysis from that. They take that data

tions. Developing a training programme

and send it back to you in a format which

for staff, covering everything from the

enables you to interrogate it. There are

basics around process to sustainable

some advantages because you haven’t

procurement, social value and contract

got to do lots of data cleansing, although

management, the tool encompasses

it’s not as rich as our own data, (it’s

the entire procurement cycle.

fairly high level) it does at least enable you to start asking questions.

“Some elements of the training programme are integral. Without it, people w w w.wa l t ha mfo re st. g ov. u k

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can’t do what they need to do, training on the e-tendering portal must be done in conjunction with contract procedure rules, so that staff not only understand what they have to do but more importantly why. The big push at the moment within the boroughs is around social value but it’s no good if just comes from leads in procurement. We need this to be embedded in the design of services and contracts so I need to get senior buy-in from both boroughs, and elected Members to champion some of these 16

causes,” he states.

Brexit is naturally a major issue at the moment and recently the Council has established a working group and held risk workshops to look at the potential impact and to enable scenario planning.

“There is no doubt that if freedom of movement becomes an issue it will impact our supply chain with regards access to labour. We’ve also got issues in London within social care and the construction sector”, he says.

“Medium to long-term, we will look at the pipeline of developments that are going to go on in the different boroughs and we can use this as an opportunity to attract and train apprentices to

plug these gaps. Whilst it’s

“ We have a passion for delivering effective public services through procurement and supplier relationships and adding value across its services” — David Levy Director of Supply Chain

going to be a turbulent period, we know we have to keep local services running and most services are underpinned by contracts and third parties in some way so ensuring that our suppliers are planning for Brexit is also key.”

Levy is passionate about the value that public sector procurement can add, and to ensure that the procurement function remains valued, Levy continually strives to ensure that the procurement team is viewed

as a critical friend that delivers value for money across all services delivered in Waltham Forest. Creativity, delivering exceptional results and driving value will remain its key goals as it serves citizens now and, in the future, bringing new solutions to the table and enabling a new breed of procurement professional through digitisation.

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LONDON BOROUGH OF WALTHAM FOREST COUNCIL Town Hall Forest Rd E17 4JF T 020 8496 3000 www.walthamforest.gov.uk