Central Government Council highlights 2023

Procurement is a really important element of supplying to central government but it is complex and can prove a huge barrier for members, particularly SMEs. The procurement workstream seeks to engage with key government stakeholders with a view to easing procurement barriers. The group has had excellent engagement from the Cabinet Office on the Procurement Bill and its implementation. The group secured a meeting with Kieran Boucher who is responsible for communications around the Procurement Bill and he was very keen to work with techUK around market engagement on the materials the Cabinet Office will be producing. The group supported a techUK member Supplier Briefing on the Procurement Act, which was led by Gareth Rhys Williams, Government Chief Commercial Officer, Crown Commercial Services, and Lindsay Maguire, Deputy Director for Procurement Reform, Cabinet Office.

Since then, the Cabinet Office has launched its official Learning and Development Knowledge Drops (KDs), including specific videos for contracting authorities, suppliers, and also SME and VCSE suppliers. The KDs are hosted on the official GCF Youtube channel but can be viewed and accessed via a dedicated Knowledge Drop gov.uk page.    

Going forward, the workstream is planning to create a one stop shop on techUK’s website with procurement informationand to ensure that techUK members have the opportunity to engage with all Cabinet Office activity including the conference they are hosting in March. Furthermore the group is looking to work more with CCS and take on a key public sector stakeholder as a patron for this workstream.

The digital transformation workstream group aims to focus on the use of technology to transform public services and promote best practice from industry and across the public sector.

The group focused initial discussions on the Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO) and their roadmap to 2025 to embed digital transformation within government and remove barriers. Initial conversations with CDDO officials have centered on their planned work around Mission 6: A system that unlocks digital transformation.

In the new year the group plan will look to focus on key government digital technology priorities. There are also plans for a series of fireside chats with recognised government leaders in digital transformation to understand the challenges facing different departments.

The market engagement workstream has been established to address the shared view that there is a cost to both industry and Government if the supplier market is not engaged well. The purpose of this group is to articulate and evangelise the value of market engagement for government and industry, codify best practice, and drive its adoption to improve outcomes for government and citizens. The group is pleased to have Vince Voon, Deputy Director, Special Projects, Commercial Directorate, Home Office as a patron for this area of work.

This workstream hopes to help ensure market engagement in the government tech sector is consistently high-quality, meaningful, a 2-way dialogue, open and collaborative.

So far they have engaged with a range of Government digital commercial officials to understand their view of market engagement and to identify the components that make up great engagement. They have established the ‘In conversation with…’ series of fireside chats to help suppliers get to know key government stakeholders outside of the procurement.  Since the start of the series, there have been really engaging and insightful conversations with Samantha Ulyatt, Chief Commercial Officer, Home Office and Martin Traynor, Small Business Representative, Cabinet Office. We are looking forward to our upcoming session with Richard Corbridge, CDIO, DWP on 24 January 2024.

The market engagement workstream members have drafted a paper articulating the value to both sides of effective engagement. Over the coming months they are going to start using the insights gained from the stakeholder conversations to create a ‘market engagement playbook’ to help ensure all parts of government and the supplier base understand the behaviours that lead to best practice.