The Oxford Procurement of Government Outcomes Club (Oxford POGO Club) is a knowledge sharing initiative that is open to anyone interested in capacity building in public procurement and in collaboration to improve social outcomes. We host monthly calls, maintain a maillist, and share other resources. Participants come from many different disciplines, sectors, and countries. The Oxford POGO Club is a collaboration between the Blavatnik School of Government and the Faculty of Law. It is chaired by Anne Davies, Professor of Law and Public Policy and managed by Ruairi Macdonald, Researcher.
Interested? Join the mailing list by emailing Ruairi Macdonald or Jonathan Davies. Find us on LinkedIn here.
Thursday 5 September, 2-3:30pm (BST)
Seminar Rooms 1 & 2, Blavatnik School of Government and online
This session will delve into the public procurement professional's role in relational public contracting for innovation, sustainability and VCSEs. By exploring the intricate relationship between procurement practices and relational contracting, we will highlight how professionals might drive social value through collaborative and responsible partnerships.
View the full programme below and sign up to watch this session online
Date: 25 June
Time: 4-5pm (BST)
This special hybrid session of the Oxford Pogo Club examined opportunities and challenges to Green Public Procurement across levels of government and around the world. The session featured insights from a diverse group of academics and practitioners who came together for the first SPARKS Net Zero Symposium. Our speakers shared their thoughts on whether or how we might be able to observe, compare, and share knowledge about Net Zero policy implementation through government contracting around the world and at different levels of government.
Invited discussants included:
Date: 28 May
Time: 4-5pm (BST)
Many national and subnational governments have declared climate emergencies and promise to leverage their contract spend to achieve Net Zero targets – but whose job is this to implement? In this session the Oxford POGO Club looked at capacity and staffing issues related to Green Public Procurement, including contract management. We had an exceptional panel discussing this issue around world at different levels of government. The discussion addressed potential trade-offs, levels of engagement, and training within the procurement workforce. We also considered various measures of capacity, how to compare capacity across different contracting agencies, and how changes in capacity might be observed over time.
Our panel:
Helpful background resources:
In this session the Oxford POGO Club took an international comparative look at the integration of social and environmental goals into public procurement, including contract management. We considered mechanisms of green public procurement in the United Kingdom, European Union member states, and South Africa. Emerging mechanisms include deciding what to buy, trying to change how procurements are run with new evaluation criteria, and/or focusing on who to buy from based on contractor qualifications, efforts to shape supply chains, and/or exclude bad actors. Our panel compared different approaches in their respective jurisdictions and comment on the opportunities and challenges associated with different mechanisms of green public procurement.
Our panel consisted of:
Helpful background resources including:
This session was held on 28 November 2023
This session considered the new Procurement Act’s timeline, opportunities, and potential challenges around implementation.
Our chair, Professor Anne Davies, was joined by:
The Procurement Act 2023 is available online here. The UK government's transparency ambition' is here and "innovation ambition' is here. Recall that Oxford POGO Club members submitted this response to the green paper and this response on the draft regulations.
Listen to the audio recording of the session.
There were two procurement-related sessions on Thursday 14 September at the GO Lab's Social Outcomes Conference (SOC23).
At 11:45, Professor Anne Davies chaired, Deep Dive 1.2 Procuring Outcomes - Still Knotty? At 14:15 Professor Jane Lynch chaired, Deep Dive 1.5 The Greatest Goals - procuring sustainability at the edge of our ability?
The recordings of these sessions can be found here.
Be sure to check out the other recordings from day 1 and day 2 as many other sessions will be interesting to Oxford POGO Club participants.
This session was held on 30 May, 2023.
How do you increase participation and inclusion in public procurement? In this session, we will explore initiatives to increase citizen participation and include Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), women-owned businesses, and minority groups in government contracting. We will hear from a panel of experts about initiatives around the world.
Listen to the audio recording of the session.
This session was held on Tue 25 April.
At this session, the Oxford POGO Club considered public procurement capacity development around the world. We expect great things from procurement and contract management professionals -- how can we strengthen and develop public procurement as a profession around the world?
Listen to the audio recording of the session.
At this session Oxford POGO Club considered the Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology's letter to the Prime Minister on delivering national priorities through public procurement.
Listen to the audio recording of the session.
Oxford POGO Club explored new efforts to protect human rights and reduce negative environmental impacts in the supply chains of goods, works, and services procured by governments. Promises, opportunities, limitations, and challenges were discussed.
Listen to the audio recording of the session.
In this online Oxford POGO Club session we considered how public Infrastructure projects may contribute to social, environmental, and economic goals. The panel had a practical focus. As always, academic and practical perspectives were brought to the discussion. The meeting was held on 25th of October 2022. Our expert panel was:
Listen to the audio recording of the session.
At the Oxford POGO Club we care about social outcomes. We talk about ways to achieve better outcome in contracts public services and/or by including wider economic, social, or environmental goals in public contracts more broadly. What does this mean for the people involved in procurement and contract management? Some of us argue that the procurement professional's role should be more strategic than administrative and/or more about finding solutions through engagement with public and private stakeholders long before and long after contract award. This session was an opportunity to dig into these issues and learn more about different perspectives on the role of procurement teams and their professonialisation around the world. The meeting was held on 28th of June 2022.
4:00 - 4:05 Opening by Chair: Anne Davies, Professor of Law and Policy, Law Faculty, University of Oxford
4:05 - 4:40 Panel presentations (Panel had 5-7 minutes each)
4:40ish - 4:48 Questions or comments from attendees.
4:48 - 4:58 Panel members' rapid responses or reflections (panelists had up to 2 minutes each)
4:58 - 5:00 Close by Chair
Note: The Social Outcomes Conference 2022 is 8 - 9 of September and includes a procurement and social value theme. The program is now online and registration is now open for online or in person participation.
Listen to the audio recording of the session.
On 31 May, 2022, at 4pm (UK), the Oxford Procurement of Government Outcomes Club (Oxford POGO Club) will consider the UK government’s new [Public] Procurement Bill and whether it looks likely to deliver promised transformations. The Oxford POGO Club session will be chaired by Professor Anne Davies, co-chaired by Michael BowsherQC and will include an expert panel. This is an online event and all are welcome.
The Procurement Bill recently landed in Parliament – the first reading, a formality, took place in the House of Lords on 11 May. The second reading, alongwith debate, is scheduled for 25 May. This bill follows a consultation process titled, ‘Transforming Public Procurement’ and the launch of a National Procurement Policy Statement.
The recent Queen’s Speech, delivered to Parliament by the Prince of Wales on 10 May 2022, promised that, ‘Public sector procurement will be simplified to provide new opportunities for small businesses.’ The Prime Minister’s introduction to the speech also promised, ‘Our public procurement regime will be made more simple, transparent and accessible to better meet the country’s needs. This will bring a huge boost to businesses and voluntary, charitable and social enterprises, who will be able to compete for public contracts.’
The Cabinet Office’s notes accompanying the Procurement Bill explains, ‘The purpose of the Procurement Bill is to reform the United Kingdom’s public procurement regime following its exit from the European Union (EU), to create a simpler and more transparent system not based on transposed EU Directives.’
See panel member (speaker) bios here.
Listen to the audio recording of the session.
Engaging voluntary, community, and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations and small businesses in public procurement — an international comparative discussion. Why? Why not? How? How not? Is it working? Chaired by Oxford Professor Anne Davies and Crown VCSE Representative, Claire Dove, this online session included insights from a Tussel report on UK VCSEs in Public Procurement and a brisk tour around the world to hear from experts about how different governments engage with VCSEs and small businesses. This was followed by responses and audience Q&A.
Listen to the audio recording of the session.
Listen to the audio recording of the session.
Governments are increasingly trying to use public contracts to pursue economic, social, and environmental goals beyond the core goods, works or services being procured. These goals may include employment opportunities, fair labour conditions, environmental targets or working with voluntary, community, or social enterprise (VCSE) organisations. This strategic use of public procurement is called different things around the world, including buying social, social clauses, community wealth building, broader outcomes, and social value. In this Oxford POGO Club session, an expert panel compares these initiatives in various nations’ procurement policies. We discuss whether these procurement initiatives are linked to wider outcomes frameworks. We also discussed different approaches to capacity development of public bodies to help implement these policies. Practical problems with implementation will be highlighted.
16:00-16:05. Welcome by Chair Professor Anne Davies, University of Oxford
16:05-16:55. Embedding broader economic, social and environmental well-being goals into government contracts — how should priorities be set and supported in public authorities’ procurements?
16:05-16:10. Introduction to guest co-chair and context setting by Andrea MacLean, Social Value Advisor, The Strategic Investment Board, Northern Ireland (🐤 @contactSIBNI)
Background Resources
UK Central Government (England and Wales)
Northern Ireland
Wales
Scotland
Australia
Prompt for Presentations and Discussion:
16:10-16:50. Presentation and Discussion led by Andrea MacLean, Social Value Advisor, The Strategic Investment Board, Northern Ireland
Discussion Panel
Response Panel
16:35-16:50. Q&A/Open Group Discussion
17:00. Meeting closed by Chair
Listen to the audio recording of the session.
In this month's Oxford POGO Call we revisited public procurement transformation initiatives. We discussed what we learnt from the UK Government's response to the consultation on the ‘Green Paper: Transforming public procurement’, and explore other international reform efforts.
16:00-16:05 Welcome by Chair Professor Anne Davies, University of Oxford
16:05-16:50 Transforming public procurement? What we learnt from the UK Government's response to the consultation on the ‘Green Paper: Transforming public procurement’
16:05-16:10 Context Setting Professor Anne Davies, University of Oxford
Reflections on the Oxford POGO Club submission to the Green Paper consultation, what we saw as the strengths and weaknesses?
Prompt for Presentations and Discussion:
16:10-16:50 Presentation and Discussion led by Michael Bowsher QC, Barrister, Visiting Professor, Monckton Chambers & Kings College London
Discussion Panel
Listen to the audio recording of the session.
This month’s Oxford POGO Club (30 November) will be looking at how green policies and environmental outcomes are being embedded in government contracts through public procurement.
Millions of carbon tonnes are produced every year during delivery of government contracts. Public procurement is increasingly being used by governments as a strategic tool to achieve broad economic, social and environmental goals beyond the core requirements of a purchase. For example, the UK government has recently issued Procurement Policy Note (PPN) 06/21: Taking account of Carbon Reduction Plans in the procurement of major government contracts.
For this session, we invited Peter Smith, co-author of the book Procurement with Purpose, to share his insights on how public procurement can be leveraged to achieve additional environmental goals. Elizabeth Forster and Kate Gough will introduce theimplication of PPN 06/21 for government and suppliers. Ian Makgill from the Spend Network will present a new open data tool to help governments prioritise contracts for carbon reduction and when. We will also be joined by Professor Fredo Schotanus, from the Centre for Public Procurement (UUCePP) Utrecht University, who will introduce a call for papers for a special issue of the Sustainability journal titled: 'The new era of sustainable public procurement'.
Deploying public procurement as a strategic driver of innovation is rising up national and regional policy agendas. However, quoting from the recently published UK Innovation Strategy “the overall culture, expertise and incentive structure of the public sector means there is a low appetite for risk and experimentation”. Overcoming this weak appetite for risk is a major challenge. While there is a deep body of research on procurement law, there is little quantified data on the innovation elements of procurement to guide decision makers.
In this POGO session we will hear about a new Consortium's examination of the research gap and their plans to bridge it. Then we will have perspectives from four specialists who are addressing the challenge and facilitating innovative procurement outcomes at city, region and country level.
Listen to the audio recording of the session.
Listen to the audio recording of the session.
We discussed sustainable public procurement in Europe, with Katharina Vierlich, Head of Unit Public Procurement Policy at European Commission.
Listen to the audio recording of the session.
For this session, we invited leading practitioners to explore data and transparency in social value procurement. This involved a presentation on the topic, followed by a response panel.
Listen to the audio recording of the session.
The focus of this month's call was system level learning in a procurement system. We explored questions on how the public procurement system is working at a regional level or national level, who gets to know and what they do with that knowledge.
Listen to the audio recording of the session.
For our March call, we welcomed Elena Hoffnagle, Project Leader at Government Performance Lab, Harvard Kennedy School, and Gian Luigi Albano, procurement expert and Adjunct Professor of Economics at LUISS “G. Carli”, Rome for two short but substantive discussions on: 1. How to leverage procurement to improve social outcomes; and 2. Thinking about framework agreements.
Listen to the audio recording of the session.
We had a short but substantive discussion of organisation culture in procurement processes. Our prompt for the panel was: Viewed through a lens of ‘culture’ are there tensions between (i) commercial and public or social value considerations (ii) transactional and partnership / relational working and/or (iii) central oversight and local leadership?
We presented the law reform working group’s public response to a the UK Government’s Green Paper: Transforming public procurement. We also explored in more depth a key theme to emerge from the working group’s discussion – culture.
Listen to the audio recording of the session.
Sign up to our new POGO working groups here & join the mailing list by emailing Ruairi Macdonald at ruairi.macdonald@bsg.ox.ac.uk
The UK Government has published a Green Paper, Transforming Public Procurement, that is intended to shape the future of public procurement in the UK for many years to come. "The government’s goal is to speed up and simplify our procurement processes, place value for money at their heart, and unleash opportunities for small businesses, charities and social enterprises to innovate in public service delivery".
In this POGO law reform working group we are proposing to make a written response to this Green Paper. Please join this session by signing up by completing this short suvey to share your comments and reflections on the Green Paper.
If you have any questions about this working group or any of the others listed about please contact Ruairi Macdonald.
The session followed and built upon November's meeting discussion on the UK Government's issuing of 'Procurement Policy Note (PPN) 06/20 - taking account of social value in the award of central government contracts'. In this session, we heard reflections from the UK Government and continued our comparisons to see how social value is procured internationally.
To register for this event, please contact Ruairi Macdonald.
Listen to the audio recording of the session.