Issue - meetings

Report of the Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance and Transformation is attached.

The Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance and Transformation presented a report setting out the Business Case for the establishment of a Central Procurement Hub as part of the Council’s Procurement Transformation Programme. Cabinet was informed that the Council currently manages around £200 million of annual third?party spend, but existing procurement arrangements are fragmented, reactive, and expose the organisation to significant financial, legal and operational risk.

The Business Case identified that procurement capacity is severely under?resourced, operating with fewer than 3 FTEs, compared with 10–15 WTE typically seen in comparable local authority and NHS organisations. Baseline assessments and stakeholder feedback highlighted substantial weaknesses in contract management, limited use of digital systems, compliance gaps, and the absence of a strategic approach to category planning and spend analysis.

To address these issues, the proposed operating model establishes a centralised procurement team aligned to the Council’s four directorates, supported by modern digital systems such as Unit4 and ScanMarket. The Programme would deliver strengthened governance, improve visibility and control over expenditure, ensure compliance with the Procurement Act 2023, and increase the Council’s ability to negotiate and manage contracts effectively.

It was forecast that the Programme would deliver gross savings increasing to £3m by Year 5, generating £10m cumulative efficiencies and an estimated £7.6m net financial benefit over five years. Additional benefits included strengthened compliance, improved organisational assurance, enhanced digital capability, cultural improvements to commercial practice, and readiness for future statutory reporting requirements.

Decision:

Cabinet:

1.    Approved the draft Houses in Multiple Occupation SPD as the basis for a six week public consultation commencing December 2025; and

2.    Delegated approval to the Executive Director of Place to undertake the public consultation and make minor non-material modifications to the draft Houses in Multiple Occupation Supplementary Planning Document before consultation commences.

Reasons for recommendation(s)

1.    The attached Business Case sets out the rationale and preferred approach for transforming procurement at Bury Council. It addresses the longstanding inefficiencies, risks, and missed opportunities in the way the Council manages its £200 million annual third-party spend on both revenue and capital procurement activity. The aim is to shift procurement from a largely reactive and transactional function to a strategic enabler of financial savings, service outcomes, and organisational assurance.

2.    The budget report considered at Cabinet in December included potential third party contract savings of £1m in 2026/27 which are predicated on the need for investment in additional procurement and contract management capacity and with the potential for further savings in 2027/28 and future years. The analysis indicates there is significant scope for efficiency savings through improved procurement planning, contract management, aggregation, and compliance.

Alternative options considered and rejected

Doing nothing is not considered a viable option with investment in, and transformation of, the service considered as essential for delivering a modern, strategic procurement function that can deliver material savings, restore control, reduce risk, and reposition procurement as a key lever in the Council’s financial and service reform agenda.