Our best practice and networking club AMIP recently held its first face-to-face meeting since September 2019 at the Ambassadors Bloomsbury in London.

Steven Brunning of Anthony Collins Solicitors started with a session on the proposed new Procurement Regulations.

Set to come into play in 2023, the regulations aim to speed up and simplify the procurement process and to make it more accessible to charities and SMEs.

Previous procurement reform has been carried out within the constraints of the EU system, so this is a “once in a generation opportunity for the Government to sort out public procurement,” said Steven.

“Now we are out of the EU they have taken the opportunity to try and design something that is more specific and attuned to the needs of the UK,” he explained. “So, that is the challenge, and we are going to have to go on a bit of a journey over the next few years to get there.

“It’s very ambitious and the whole objective is to make things fairer, speed things up, make them more efficient and to simplify the huge amount of regulation that there is in this area, which is very complex and needs to be easier to apply.”

The Cabinet Office issued its Green Paper (Transforming Public Procurement) in December 2020 and received 619 responses to the open consultation, as well as consulting with over 500 stakeholders.

Steven gave a whistle stop tour of the eight-chapter consultation response paper, highlighting some fairly radical changes and pointing out that the Government intends to proceed with the majority of the reforms that were initially recommended.

This was followed by a very well-received session about engaging residents in procurement, which highlighted the value of meaningful engagement.

Sonji Nurse and Adrian Ingram, residents of Hexagon Housing Association talked about their involvement in the procurement of a new repairs, voids and planned works contract for 4,248 properties in London.

The 10-year contract, which is based around a PPP model, is currently being mobilised with a start date of June 2022.

Sonji and Adrian talked about their experiences of participating in the Competitive Dialogue process and explained how they will continue to be involved during mobilisation and beyond.

They also took questions from the floor about the training that they received, the benefits of meaningful engagement and the response of bidders to the process.

The meeting ended with a session, led by Echelon’s Commercial Director Kelly Kerr, reviewing the new Complaints Handling Code issued by the Housing Ombudsman Service and outlining how clients and service providers can work collaboratively to achieve positive outcomes.

The Code, which is a direct response to the Housing Whitepaper, comes into effect on 1^st April 2022 and must be fully implemented by October 2022.

Kelly outlined the key points in the guidance, which aims to make it easier for residents to make complaints, pointing out that while it is not supposed to be prescriptive it does tell you what you “must” do in many areas, with a massive emphasis on landlords actively promoting the code, promoting their complaints procedures, and promoting the use of the Ombudsman.

She spoke of the benefits of an effective and efficient complaints process and talked through responses to some frequently asked questions before taking questions from attendees.

As it was the first meeting to be held in person for over two years, the day was rounded off with a drinks reception in the bar giving people the opportunity to network informally.