Caerphilly County Borough Council - Leading the way in Welsh eProcurement

28 May 2009

Caerphilly County Borough Council – Leading the way in Welsh eProcurement

Caerphilly County Borough Council is the 5th largest local authority in Wales and employs around 9,000 people making it the largest employer in the area and 10th largest in Wales.

The Council delivers a wide range of services to the 170,000 people living in the county borough including education, environmental services, social services, finance, highways, leisure services and consumer protection.

Over recent years the Council has been challenging the way in which it spends its money with a focus on areas such as procuring more for less, regeneration and assisting the local community (including SMEs and the Voluntary sector)

As part of their procurement transformation, Caerphilly County Borough Council is the first local authority to join the Welsh Assembly Government’s sponsored eProcurement solution, xchangewales eTrading.

"The xchangewales programme will allow us to work with our suppliers to ensure that we are trading in the most effective and efficient manner – working together to achieve the maximum benefit of work flow" Caerphilly County Borough Council Improvement Plan 2005/2008 states.

By adopting eProcurement Caerphilly County Borough Council will also be supporting their Sustainable Development Strategy - paper order pads are no longer available for use.

Martin Sykes, Chief Executive of Value Wales and xchangewales Senior Responsible Officer, recently visited Caerphilly’s procurement team to learn about their experience in implementing this new system. Martin was also interested to see xchangewales working in a ‘live environment’ and was impressed by the team’s commitment and professionalism.

He has come away with a huge respect for Caerphilly County Borough Council’s pioneering spirit; "It’s never easy being one of the first organisations to implement such a major change to their procurement processes, however Liz Lucas and her team of procurement professionals have risen to the challenge and are already starting to reap the benefits – even picking up an award along the way."

Liz Lucas, Caerphilly’s Head of Procurement, was equally enthusiastic to share Caerphilly’s experiences; "To date we have had over £410k spend via the xchangewales eTrading hub and 1266 orders since we went live with xchangewales in March 2009. Our users like the product very much and we are receiving excellent feedback." Caerphilly County Borough Council also recently picked up a coveted Welsh Local Government Award recognising their use of procurement to help transform their organisation, the implementation of xchangewales formed part of their submission. "The judges were impressed with the way we were taking eProcurement forward" added Liz.