Towards the end of the awarded contract period, at a time when you may be planning to reprocure the contract as an ongoing requirement or simply determining whether to extend the contract or to reprocure, it can be useful to review the procurement exercise in terms of:
The process followed, the quality and perceived value for money achieved in terms of the supplies or services received
Efficiencies (including monetary savings) that have been achieved through the procurement and contract management processes.
The review process is particularly important for the higher value procurements.
Areas to be considered include:
Are the supplies or services what the end-user needed or expected? If not, why not? What could you do better next time?
Were the supplies delivered on time, or for an ongoing supply or service, are they being delivered when needed?
Now that the supplies are here or the services are being provided, are they really needed?
Is there now spare capacity that could be made available to other users (this is relevant in terms of future procurements and the original challenge function about the need for the requirement)
If you were re-drafting the specification now, what if anything, would you or the end-user change?
Was the timescale set (or available for the procurement) adequate? If not, why not? What can you do to improve this next time?
Did you hold interviews with a number of short-listed tenderers? If yes, were the interviews beneficial? Did the interview format work? If not, why not? Did the interviews help the decision process?
Was there a nominated project group to deal with the procurement? How did it work? Where there any problems/difficulties? What would you try to do differently next time?
Creating a report - It is suggested, especially for the higher value or higher profile procurements, that a short report is prepared summarising what was good and bad about the process. The report should include recommendations of improvements that should be considered for future procurements. This report should be shared with colleagues, perhaps in training situations, to help improve the procurement processes within your institution.
Reviewing the exercise - It is also important to review the procurement exercise in terms of efficiencies achieved. These may be in the form of cashable (i.e. funds are released or not used and are then available to spend on other supplies or services) or non-cashable (i.e. intangible efficiencies through improved processes, higher quality supplies/services at same or lower price etc).
Templates
CPC has produced several templates covering this element of the procurement lifecycle, find them in the Manage section of the Procurement Toolkit. These are provided at no cost to our members and can be downloaded and adapted for your institution’s use.
Further Reading
The Cabinet Office has produced a range of guidance notes covering the ‘manage’ phase of the procurement lifecycle. This is aimed at those working in a procurement function with the wider public sector and you may find some additional useful information as you begin the process of planning procurement activity.
School / MAT members - the information on this page aligns with the following ISBL Professional Standards: 3.4, 3.53, 3.54, 3.55, 3.56