What if you could transform efficiency in public services today by procuring services from 223 pre-approved digital SMEs, at the forefront of innovation?
The 2023 Procurement Act has the potential to unlock innovation
Procurement is a hugely powerful lever to deliver innovation and growth - from what we buy, to who we buy from. This was a major focus of discussion in the Government's Innovation Expert Group, where I was delighted to work with Hayaatun Sillem CBE and other Board members to develop the five recommendations on how to leveraging procurement to support innovative SMEs & drive productivity growth.
The 2023 Procurement Act that went live on 24th February creates a step change across the breadth of procurement, from managing pipelines to post-contract delivery. This spans from the new Competitive Flexible procedure, where authorities can design processes to their specific requirements, to the need for clients to consider factors such as location & social value in decisions.
There is so much potential over the next few years to scale-up innovation in the UK. I am delighted to see the Cabinet Office proposing the creation of a ‘Commercial Innovation Hub’ aimed at improving procurement practices by sharing best practices and promoting opportunities for small businesses in public contracts. But setting this up will take time and we need to increase the pace of digital adoption to deliver the savings & efficiency gains.
But how do we gain rapid visibility on innovative companies that the public sector can use today?
That's the question we asked ourselves at IAND. We started with data - downloading the public data on the projects funded by Innovate UK and the latest list of suppliers on the CCS digital framework G-Cloud 14, then got our IAND platform to do the rest.
This gave us visibility across over 11K organisations funded by Innovate UK in the past 5 years, from early R&D in university spin outs to products now market ready to adopt. The organisations supported span the UK, from Shetland to Cornwall.
But how many are procurement ready for the public sector on the CCS Digital Framework G-Cloud 14?
There are 283 Innovate UK-funded companies on G-Cloud 14, including 223 SMEs. They have together received £155M of grant funding, which can now be leveraged to support the public sector in the digital transformation of public services.
Why G-Cloud 14? This is CCS framework provides a marketplace of digital suppliers (including IAND!), where suppliers have already gone through a due diligence process, with pricing and contracts already in place.
But there are many, many more frameworks in the public sector
One of the most exciting opportunities that the Procurement Act 2023 provides, is the ability to leverage more value from the procurement routes that already exist (as well as in parallel support the development of new procurement approaches).
This is one of the ways that our platform can help give insights on suppliers & unlock the potential of procurement to drive growth. Want to find out more on how we can help?
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