What is it?

This toolkit, developed by PUBLIC in partnership with LOTI, aims to equip London boroughs with the knowledge, guidance, resources and functional tools needed to achieve more innovative purchasing outcomes when buying technology products, services and support.

It has a focus on innovation and ‘agile’ procurement, including how boroughs can work more with startups, scaleups, SMEs and local suppliers. The toolkit outlines opportunities for London boroughs to work together on technology procurements with similar service needs and priorities.

The toolkit progresses throughout the ‘life-cycle’ of a procurement, moving from the process of collecting and preparing services requirements, through to managing the contract with a chosen supplier. The guidance sections are broken down across five discrete stages:

Preparation – General background practices and processes that can be used by London boroughs every day, which are not linked to any specific procurement.

Strategy – Once a procurement has begun, this is the strategic planning and requirements gathering phase, including user testing, and early market engagement.

Design – Having gathered user needs, and completed the relevant strategic assessments, this phase relates to designing the right specifications and contract requirements.

Execution – This phase covers how to run the best procurement process, including choosing the right procedure and contracting route.

Management – Having selected a supplier and awarded a contract, this phase covers how to best manage suppliers, to ensure continuous improvement and innovation.

Why have we created it?

All public services are at some point enabled by technology. LOTI boroughs want to understand what they can change about their own procurement approaches to ensure they are able to access the best technologies the market can provide. In particular, based on insights from LOTI’s City Tools report, they want to find ways to reduce their dependency on the small number of large suppliers who dominate the market and work with smaller, more innovative companies.

Who should use it?

The toolkit is intended for use by Digital / IT teams, Procurement Leads, and Service Managers looking at systems relevant to their area.