From Challenge to Opportunity: Senior Leaders on Procurement Innovation

The Senior Leaders Casebook is your essential guide to turning procurement into a strategic lever for innovation. Designed for public sector leaders, policy makers, innovators, and procurement professionals, this toolkit features case studies across transport, health, infrastructure, and local government, exploring how senior leaders are breaking through risk-aversion and legacy processes to deliver smarter, faster, and greener solutions.

Who it's for:

This casebook is designed for senior leaders across government, policy, and public services who want to:

• Build confidence in using procurement to support innovation
• Learn from others tackling complex, real-world challenges
• Understand what’s worked, what hasn’t, and why
• Connect procurement practice with wider strategic aims

Packed with insights from experienced leaders across transport, health, infrastructure, and local government, it shows what’s possible when procurement is used not just as a process, but as a lever for progress.

What you’ll find inside:

• Interviews with eight senior leaders across transport, health, local government, and infrastructure.
• Lessons on managing risk, fostering collaboration, and working across organisational boundaries.
• Examples of using new procurement models to support innovation, including outcome-based contracts and dynamic frameworks.
• Insights on how the new Procurement Act can support more flexible and forward-looking approaches.

Why it matters:

Procurement plays a vital role in shaping public services, but it is often seen as a blocker rather than an enabler of innovation. This toolkit challenges that view, showing how leadership, early engagement, and thoughtful design can unlock better outcomes for citizens and communities.

Download the casebook to explore what’s possible when procurement is used strategically and see how public sector leaders are already making it happen.

Share your story:

The Senior Leaders Casebook is just the start. We're building a growing community of public sector leaders who are rethinking how procurement can deliver change. If you’ve led or supported an innovative approach to procurement, however big or small, we’d love to hear from you. Peer-to-peer learning is one of the most powerful ways to build confidence, challenge assumptions, and spread what works.

If you would like to share your story please email us at contact@ipec.org.uk