Local Procurement in Practice - London Universities Purchasing Consortium

London Universities Purchasing Consortium (LUPC) attracts SMEs (Small and Medium Sized Enterprises) to its recruitment framework agreement through innovative tendering.

Established in 1968, LUPC is a not-for-profit professional buying organisation owned by its Members, for its Members. LUPC's core membership is made up of universities and colleges of higher education in and around the capital, along with some colleges of further education.

With a £19m annual spend on temporary recruitment, the LUPC aimed to establish a highly competitive framework agreement that gave Members a genuine choice - between larger suppliers offering a strategic relationship and smaller, specialist and perhaps local providers that offered high levels of knowledge and service.

To achieve this, LUPC needed to find an innovative new strategy to enable small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to have an even chance of winning business. As a result, LUPC split the requirement into seven lots: six specialist lots (with one final award in each) and a seventh, one-stop-shop lot (with 3 final awards).

The specialist lots provided for temporary staff in administrative and clerical, finance, Information Communication Technology (ICT), operational, retail and other corporate roles such as HR and

procurement. Since only one supplier was to be appointed in each specialist lot, bidders would be incentivised to submit their very best prices.

LUPC ran a Bidders' Conference for the 42 suppliers shortlisted. They set out the strategy for their bidders, sharing their criteria, weightings and scoring mechanism, which provided clarity for all attending, including the SMEs.

After the evaluation of tenders, the framework agreement was awarded to a total of seven suppliers, four of which were SMEs.

LUPC achieved the following benefits:

Increased spend with SMEs
Created specific new business opportunities for SMEs
Better/competitive prices
Quick turnaround times by using SMEs to fulfil niche university related vacancy requirements

"Using SMEs has helped us to provide an enhanced service for our members. LUPC Members now have the opportunity to meet a need for temporary staff quickly, by ordering from one of a series

of knowledgeable, specialist providers of temporary staff straight away and at highly competitive rates." Andy Davies, LUPC Director.

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