Blackpool Council had the foresight to make plans at the very start of the Corvid pandemic to put things in place that would protect their local supply chains and in particular the SME community who are so important to the Blackpool economy. They realised that many of the SME’s who had been so loyal to Blackpool over the years would risk going out of business if all the work suddenly dried up. Whilst this didn’t mean issuing works orders at a point when so much was unknown about how we could protect ourselves from the virus the they designed a procurement that would give SME’s a degree of confidence about the medium and long term opportunities that would be available through the Council.
The innovative procurement is focused on small improvement works that anticipates appointing a number of contractors for a 4-year term based on a 100% weighted quality assessment – a brave step for any public body. This timely action will undoubtedly be the difference for a number of SME’s between keeping their businesses going or winding things up.
Under the framework Blackpool will have the option of making a direct award to a single contractor, providing the cost are acceptable and built up in accordance with their tender or seek prices from a number of the contractors via a mini competition.
It is important to understand that this is not just another framework. It is in fact providing an opportunity to those companies that might otherwise struggle to get on Council tender lists or Tier 1 provider supply chains. Blackpool aim to become an “incubator” for novel techniques and inventions that might otherwise be overlooked. This will benefit the whole industry as well as stimulating the local economy and getting cash directly to the front line. This approach requires vision and a real leap of faith by the Council as it is actively seeking out and trailing innovation.
The Council, as a key member of the Local Councils Roads Innovation Group (LCRIG) is pushing this concept even further. Firstly, they are making the framework available to all LCRIG member authorities (over 50 in number) and secondly, they are willing to ‘gift’ the procurement documents to the same group so they can engage their own local supply chains using the same mechanism. There has already been a great deal of interest so if other councils do adopt this approach and procure similar frameworks it could potentially create a whole new delivery community focused on delivering innovative approaches to highways maintenance that are faster, cheaper and better.