Emergency initiatives to address the COVID 19 crisis are dramatically demonstrating the value of public procurement in accelerating and deploying innovation. Legislation is often cited as a barrier to innovation. However, legal constraints do not appear to have inhibited COVID 19 responses. Indeed, rule makers in the UK and… Read More
Radical Innovation for Places post COVID, is a concise report that reflects on the benefits of ambitious post-pandemic innovation programmes, innovation procurement and the methods that place leaders can use to realise impact for their local businesses and citizens. Fulfilling the expectations of citizens and tackling global challenges is… Read More
In 2011, Sir Frances Maude, then Minister for the Cabinet Office, determined that strong skills development was required at all levels of government to enable public servants to harness the power of the market with confidence and deliver achieve real, meaningful outcomes on the ground, by commissioning procurement. The… Read More
The 2016 pamphlet, The Art of the Possible in Public Procurement (hereafter The Art) resonated. Matt Robinson of the Community Development Corporation, for example, wrote: “In nearly 10 years of trying to understand and navigate UK public procurement [the Art] is by far the most… Read More
Anyone on the frontline of public sector planning in England over the last 20 years will know how public sector planning software can help (or indeed hinder) the role of planners today. The challenge is not just the limited choice of suppliers, but also the fact that most of… Read More
The last five years have seen five governments under three different leaders. Local government is used to periodic political change with semi-regular shifts in the political make-up of councils. But ultimately the institutions and systems which underpin this country’s national and local politics rarely experience excessive upheaval and widespread… Read More
After PlanTech Week 2019, we jointly announced a new set of digital planning principles we had been collaborating on with the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI). In this blog, Connected Places Catapult Senior Urbanist (Architecture), Justin Kliger, expands on the urgent need for our joint PlanTech manifesto to be adopted as quickly… Read More
The most likely reasons for these Innovation Partnerships not being used may include the fact that this is still a relatively new procedure (introduced by the latest suite of EU public procurement directives in 2014) and therefore there is a lack of familiarity with its use, or that there… Read More
The complexities of buying and selling in public sector markets can be a significant hurdle and there have been many reports produced aimed at helping to showcase the range of possibilities open to innovative procurement teams. However, as part of the Challenging Procurement series, we recognise that many procurement teams… Read More
Developed strategically, public sector spending can be used to drive innovation, with the twin goals of improving outcomes for the public and supporting sustainable public finances. However, to date, CBI members consistently state that public procurement stifles — rather than encourages — the adoption of new technologies and… Read More
