Collaboration In Procurement And Commissioning Within Britsh Public

Collaboration In Procurement And Commissioning Within Britsh Public Collaboration In Procurement And Commissioning Within Britsh Public Services â€" Essay Example > The public sector has a great responsibility of quality service delivery to the public and one way of enhancing quality service delivery is through collaborative procurement. The term procurement according to Uyarra (2010, p. 2) refers to ‘the process of acquiring goods, services and works by government or public sector organisations, both from third parties and from in-house providers organizations’. Public procurement aims at ‘delivering value for money as well as social inclusion, sustainability, regeneration, employment generation and support for small businesses (Uyarra 2010, p. 2). On the other hand, commissioning goes beyond procurement to cover identification of public needs, planning, sourcing, delivery, and performance management (Uyarra 2010, p. 12). To improve service delivery in the public sector, it is important for public and private sectors to partner together to ensure community participation in design and delivery of services (Uyarra 2010, p. 12). One of su ch partnerships is in collaborative procurement/purchasing that entails partnering of two or more organisations in the acquisition of goods, works and services as well as in the sharing of information and resources (Uyarra 2010, p. 12). This paper focuses on collaborative procurement within Lancashire Constabulary, which is part of the Police Procurement North West (PPNW) that was formed in 2010 with the aim of improving service delivery through partnerships as well as making it easy for tender bidders to apply for tenders. For collaborative activities and in particular collaborative procurement to be successful, the right governance, policies, measures, agreements, systems and processes need to be put in place (Killin 2010, p. 3). Lancashire Constabulary can collaborate with other police departments and local authorities within Lancashire to improve public service delivery. In fact, it has taken a big step by being part of the PPNW, which is composed of all of the North West Regio n Police Forces. Lancashire Constabulary can achieve economies of scale as well as other social benefits by doing collaborative procurement with other public sectors. There are several buying activities that Lancashire Constabulary can practice collaborative procurement. Firstly, this constabulary can jointly purchase energy with the local authorities and police departments in Lancashire to reduce the costs on energy. Through collaborative procurement of energy from power supply companies, the constabulary will cut on procurement costs as well as save on time that is spend on planning for procurement. This benefit of bulk purchasing has been supported by the NIEP for the Built Environment (2010, p. 4) and recognises that bulk purchasing is cheaper and reduces the number of suppliers. Secondly, Lancashire Constabulary can collaborate with the other police departments in Lancashire in the purchase of water from the water supply companies. This, like the collaborative energy procurem ent will reduce supplier numbers as well as improve the service delivery. The service delivery will be faster because there is the power of the masses unlike when an organization is purchasing utilities individually. Another area where the Lancashire Constabulary can be involved in collaborative procurement is in the purchase of staff uniform for the different police units. Through collaborative procurement with the members of the Police Procurement North West (Cheshire Police, Cumbria Constabulary, Greater Manchester Police, Lancashire Constabulary, Merseyside Police and North Wales Police), Lancashire constabulary will reduce supplier numbers and also reduce the expenses of purchasing since bulk purchasing is cheaper.