In this episode of the Go4Growth podcast our host Gill wears a different hat. One of the voluntary roles Gill has is as Trustee of a Multi Academy Trust and today she is joined by the Head of Business Transformation for the Trust (Nexus) and they talk through the role of procurement in Education through the lens of both practitioners and governance.

They talk through the journey Nexus has been on from a procurement perspective, including how the Procurement Excellence Programme (PEP) has changed how Procurement thinks and acts and the impact it has had so far and will have in the future.

They consider the role procurement plays in supporting teaching and learning, and share a specific project which is based around Biophilic Design. The impacts are pretty staggering!

Gill & Lana also discuss how procurement can align with the employability agenda? Connecting suppliers and students can be really powerful and Lana shares some of the successes and future plans in this area.

We hope you find it an empowering, inspiring and interesting conversation about the power good procurement can bring to education and we'd love to know what you think. Equally, if you're a supplier who would like to know more about supporting employability opportunities through the many ways this can be done, give us a shout at support@go4growth.co.uk and we'll get chatting!

In this episode, we listen to a podcast version of a recording we made for the CIPS West Yorkshire Branch event back in May 2024.

You'll hear Go4Growth co-founder Gillian Askew talk through some facts and stats about the challenges and barriers to working with SMEs through the procurement lens and similarly how the marketplace themselves view the barriers and challenges to working with the public sector.

There's a look at some research findings from research projects Go4Growth has done and some top tips for buyers and commissioners who want to support the SME marketplace.

To finish off we explore the use of AI in bids (amongst other support) and the Procurement Act 2023 and how it could impact SMEs going forward.

If anyone would like to have a look at the iGov survey we did with YPO and the broader results and insights it gave, you can find it here: https://www.ypo.co.uk/public-sector/go4growth - Public Sector Attitudes to Working With SME Suppliers

We hope you find it useful and as always if you'd like to chat more, get in touch at gill@go4growth.co.uk

In this episode founder of Go4Growth Gillian Askew talks through some of the key areas of the Procurement Act 2023 which comes into force in October 2024.

In the podcast you can hear about some of the key changes such as:

• The bidding process
• Enhanced transparency
• MEAT vs MAT
• Supplier performance and contract management
• The Central Digital Platform
• Dynamic markets and frameworks

Gillian discusses how the Act will change things for smaller businesses, looking at what the current challenges and barriers are and the impact that the Act will have. There are lots of reasons for real optimism that Gillian explores discussing the positives of change for smaller organisations.

There is also information on how to get prepared for the changes in the regulations with some guidance for both procurement and the marketplace about how barriers to entry and growth can be removed.