Innovation Procurement System officially launched at Innovation Festival

The Local Council Roads Innovation Group’s (LCRIG) Innovation Procurement System (IPS) has been officially launched at this year’s Innovation Festival.

LCRIG has developed the IPS in partnership with Crown Commercial Service (CCS) – with the aim of increasing the pace of change and giving greater control to LCRIG members to adopt innovation at a lower cost.

The LCRIG IPS will remove the hurdles in accessing innovation in the sector by creating a dynamic route for LCRIG Members to access the market and engage with innovators nationally. The partnership will achieve the following benefits:

• Easy access to proven innovation to expedite adoption thus contributing to improved whole lifecycle asset cost and leveraging impactful, cutting-edge technology.
• Dynamic access to innovation in various categories which are not included in typical sector asset management, technology and highway services frameworks.

Both LCRIG Chief Executive Martin Duffy and Jason Sprague, Consultant at Sprague & Co provided an update on the IPS during the morning of day 1 at the Festival.

Mr Duffy said: ”This is a landmark moment for the sector. The IPS will transform how councils are able to procure innovative products and services. We worked in partnership with Crown Commercial Service to deliver the system and we hope that the industry is able to benefit from the accessibility and opportunities brought about by using it.

”The IPS is available to all councils in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. We will help councils and suppliers through the process, with the idea of making it as simple as possible.”

LCRIG believe the IPS will ease the route to market for suppliers, speed up procurement, and deliver best value, innovative solutions to the taxpayer to maintain our critical highway infrastructure.

Shropshire Council will be the first to trial the agile IPS and thereafter the first category will be fully rolled out which will initially mean the on-boarding of multiple companies that provide innovative solutions for road surface treatments.

The LCRIG IPS platform can be accessed here.