Here's a twitter thread of clips summarising the main points I made to the Lords Public Services Committee last week, about the #Procurement Green Paper and what it means for public services

We started with whether it offers greater flexibility.....

"Unfortunately it removes, entirely, the distinction between commissioning services for people, delivered by people (on the one hand) and buying supplies of things (on the other).... it lacks any sense that public services are, first and foremost, for the people who need them"

"It's vastly quicker to use grant funding to support partnerships without going anywhere near a procurement regulation"

"We ought, at least, to have different regimes for commissioning public services, and for purchasing things like crockery for parliament....A single set of rules can't do both justice. We should also consider removing some public services from Public Competition Rules altogether"

"If you're a small charity, 80% volunteers, volunteer trustees, everyone rooted in serving the local community, what you ARE is social value, it's not something you add in a tickbox 'down the side'"

"Grant funding is the only real way to fund innovation. Contracting for innovation is like dancing to architecture - it's the wrong verb for the noun"

"We should move away from the idea that it's purchasing a service that produces an outcome

A child may be helped by their school, foster carer & faith group all at the same time, each may want to claim *they* achieved it.. but it's being involved in their life that's important"

And if that's whet your appetite for thinking it's a much more interesting topic than the word "procurement" may at first appear, please do check out the whole session, and all the brilliant evidence and points made by the wonderful @PaulStreets_ too

https://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/7fd4834c-e50f-474b-9365-6dcfa39ec1d4#player-tabs