31 May 2022 
Ashley Shelbrooke, HEPA and Project Specialist
The Procurement Bill received its second reading in the House of Lords last week. As things stand, the reforms presented in the Bill will not apply to Scotland. Should you wish to, you can read the Hansard here and watch the full session here, though in the interests of time I have summarised the key topics that were discussed below:
You can keep up to date on the progress of the Procurement Bill here, and we will continue to keep HEPA members in the loop as the reform programme progresses over the coming months.
Many legal firms have produced their own insights on the Bill this month. Jonathan Davey and colleagues at Addleshaw Goddard have written a handy piece covering points to note here, and you can re-watch Jonathan’s excellent Procurement Legal Update from the BUFDG Finance Festival here. In addition to this, Uddalak Datta of Shakespeare Martineau has produced a fantastic piece which you can read here, specifically addressing the Procurement Bill and its impact on Higher Education Institutions.
HEPA represents the sector on the Cabinet Office Transforming Public Procurement L&D Working Group. The third meeting of the Working Group took place last week, and you can read my notes from that meeting on the discussion board here. Topics covered include:
It was a real pleasure to attend the 2022 NEUPC Conference in Leeds last month. You can visit the Conference site here, where you can also download the presentations from the sessions. I am very much looking forward to the LUPC and SUPC Conference next week, and the NWUPC Conference later in June. I was really gutted to be on away for APUC’s Procurement Network Conference earlier this month.
A reminder that if you have not already done so then you can sign up for the forthcoming LUPC, SUPC and NWUPC Conferences at the registration pages below:
8 June @ 10AM: NEUPC and YORhub are hosting a webinar on Constructing Procurement Gold Standards. The session will provide an update on areas of best practice taken from the recently published ‘Constructing the Gold Standard - Independent Review of Construction Frameworks’. Sign up here.
14 June @ 10AM: re:build Britain - resolving disputes - when contracts go wrong. Find out more here, and register for free with Womble Bond Dickinson here.
4 July from 10:30: Introduction to HE for Professional Services Staff. This is a one day development event aimed at all professional services staff within their first year of working in HE, who need to grasp the complexities and political environment of HE, and the implications for operating and influencing effectively. Sign up for free here.
June and July: Demystifying Finance and Budgeting in the HE sector (for Non-Accountants). BUFDG has worked over the years to improve understanding of university business models and demystify financial jargon, running a series of events and highly successful publications. To take this to the next level we have partnered with Vivek Mehan who is a specialist in demystifying the perceived complexities of finance for non-accountants to develop a blended training programme. Find out more and book here.
