Executive Summary
The elected City of London Corporation acts as the local authority for the Square Mile business district around St Paul’s. It supports the UK-based financial services industry and provides many other services and facilities for London and the wider UK as well as provides open space and safeguards heritage. The City Corporation has three sources of finance: local authority, its own charity, and an endowment fund. All City of London services involve procurement. Procurement can range from contracting for an entire service to purchasing small assets such as office equipment. The procurement process does not end at the commissioning or contract award stage, but spans the entire life cycle of the product or service from inception and design through to contract management and disposal of any redundant assets. Effective procurement supports the City of London’s aims and objectives, helping the City of London to deliver high quality services which meet the current and future needs of local people and are based on value for money. The City has a procurement strategy which details how procurement will achieve the above aims. It has participated in collaborative procurement for a number of years, and is an active member of the procurement bodies like, The London Contracts and Supplies Group (LCSG) which was establish in 1976 in recognition of the need for a greater degree of co-ordination and joint action in purchasing and supply matters in Greater London. The LCSG awards contract for commonly used supplies and services, and spreads good practice. The City is also a member of the London Central Partnership (LCP) Procurement Group. The LCP is a collaborative venture by the Corporation of London, the London Boroughs of Islington, Camden and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC). The Corporation spends approximately £250m on external goods, services and works.
Issues Identification with Impact Analysis:
The City is seeking to achieve savings and drive efficiencies through the way in which it conducts its procurement and procure-to-pay functions. In 2011 city set a target to cut procurement costs by £30m over five years through a procurement shared service for multiple departments. To achieve this target the city selected Accenture; a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company because of its proven success in delivering procurement services to organizations across the world. It’s yet to be five years and the city is facing challenge to achieve its’ goal. The City awarded Accenture a five-year contract to help it reduce its procurement costs by creating a new, world-class procurement shared service center. This innovative, value-based arrangement ensured that both Accenture and the City of London Corporation are committed to delivering these savings. Accenture brought its deep industry skills and insight across its global network to drive continuous improvement for the City tied to the savings achieved to demonstrate its commitment and confidence in its ability to deliver savings. Accenture initially focused on delivering strategic sourcing i.e. savings from across the City’s diverse base of suppliers and by transforming the way that the City manages its procurement operations. A new central City of London Procurement Service has been created to undertake all procurement and procure- to-pay functions. This service is being delivered by a joint team from the City and Accenture for the duration of the contract. New technology has been deployed through the implementation of an eMarketplace and a buyer portal to assist departments in requisitioning and using the new service. This unified procurement function helped the City fully exploit the latest procurement techniques, such as category and demand management, and more effectively balance quality, price and operational costs. The City will continue to enjoy the legacy of both the financial and non-financial benefits after the