Our procurement activities are governed by rules, policies and strategies.
Contract Procedure Rules
All procurement must conform to the Northamptonshire County Council (NCC) Contract Procedure Rules. A full version of the contract rules can be viewed below:
Policies
CRB - vetting of contractor's/supplier's staff
Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks protect the vulnerable and safeguard posts that involve working with children, young people and vulnerable adults.
Procurement Guidance for Equality
This guidance supports the Equality Procurement policy. It contains details on the relevant law and principles. It includes relevant guidance on the considerations to be made when making procurement decisions both where equality is a core requirement of the contract; and where they are not so important but marginal to the output of the contract.
Sustainable Procurement Policy
The Sustainable Procurement policy has been developed to address the objective to ‘promote procurement practices and policies which contribute to the Council's priorities on equality, sustainability and regeneration’ and is a key objective of the Procurement team.
Supporting Local Businesses
NCC carefully reviews the required specifications of any contract, to ensure that SMEs (Small Minority Enterprises) are not being disadvantaged (or favoured) in their ability to tender for goods, works or services with the Council.
However it must also be noted that the EU regulations that govern all public sector organisations require procurement to not discriminate, favour or show bias. Visit the website below for further information.
Whistle Blowing for bought-in goods and services
How does an employee or contractor raise a concern and how the council will respond?
Strategies
Corporate Procurement Strategy
The Strategy signposts the way forward to continue the development of a high quality procurement and contract management culture as part of a shared service. It underpins and supports the achievement of the Council’s strategic and social objectives and the government’s vision for local authority procurement. It is also a roadmap towards continuous improvement.