In 2018/19, over half the value of Stockport Council contracts have been awarded to locally based businesses – meaning that many businesses in the Borough are benefitting locally from the Council’s spending.
One of the ways STAR has achieved this increased local spend is by supporting businesses and organisations to become ‘match fit’ – so they bid well and know how to respond to public sector tenders procured via STAR. We have further work to do but this approach is clearly working.
The other STAR councils have also seen success and are considering the wider benefits of ‘Social Value’ now as part of the tender processes. Many local businesses offer more benefits to the wider community in Stockport than larger, national organisations. This has also helped to keep the spend within the local economy.
Lorraine Cox, Director of STAR Procurement said: “We are pleased with the results on local spend and expect to see further improvements. We want to capture improvement through Social Value also. My team and colleagues across the Councils have worked hard to deliver this improvement and will continue to keep it simple, support businesses and organisations locally and enable procurement to deliver improvement for our region”
STAR Joint Committee collectively are delighted with the significant improvement and can see how STAR is supporting the wider agenda and regional priorities through good local procurement.