Anthony Collins Solicitors and Nottinghamshire County Council Show the Shape of Things to Come in Lean Public Sector Procurement
Anthony Collins Solicitors completes public sector procurement for Nottinghamshire County Council for £10.2m IT contract in just two months.
Public Sector procurement specialist lawyers Anthony Collins Solicitors and Nottinghamshire County Council recently teamed up to show just how cost-effective public sector procurement can and should be done in today’s challenging financial climate.
Against a backdrop of a number of recent high-profile and costly public sector procurement fiascos, it took Anthony Collins and Nottinghamshire County Council less than two months to complete a £10.2m contract that commits the authority to major changes in its HR, Payroll, Finance and Procurement functions and delivers the cornerstone of the Council’s business improvement strategy.
With Anthony Collins Solicitors acting as sole legal advisers on the negotiations, the contract signed with Logica UK Limited will unlock a range of benefits, including:
- Greater efficiency to increase the work capacity of each staff member and so reduce the cost of these functions across the council.
- Up-skilling and empowering Council staff so they are fully engaged and can sustain the changes with minimal ongoing help from consultants.
- A purposeful new IT system based on SAP’s Enterprise Resource Planning software which provides the functionality to manage operations, cost accounting, contracts, assets and personnel will facilitate more effective management, and more joined up working between council departments and partners, suppliers and citizens.
Effective Partnership for a new era of Public Sector Procurement
The resulting contract is an early and leading example of what public authorities and their professional advisers can achieve in a new era of public sector procurement.
The Nottinghamshire County Council project is designed to pay for itself through efficiency savings by early 2013. The clear vision, good governance, discipline and business-led use of IT that underpin the Council’s strategy reflects growing trends in public sector procurement and were immediately attractive to Anthony Collins Solicitors.
Despite the timescales within which it was forged, the contract is high quality and well thought through against the most exacting standards.
The Council was fortunate in having three bidders of exceptional quality who presented solutions based on both Oracle and SAP software. Anthony Collins was appointed to support the Council’s project team in the legal and commercial negotiations; the Anthony Collins’ team played a key role in promoting strong competition between the bidders whilst ensuring procurement law compliance and strict confidentiality.
Other key features of the contract included a fixed price, contractual commitments which require Logica UK to achieve outcomes rather than merely deliver a service and built-in contingencies and flexible software licence terms that enable the Council to meet an uncertain future.
The lawyers’ sheer tenacity and hard work was credited with encouraging bidder commitment to the process.
Jon Nash, the UK Public Sector adviser who led the Council’s negotiating team, said: “Anthony Collins blended seamlessly into the Council’s team. There was an immediate affinity between Anthony Collins’ lead David Hall and the team, and he was completely focused on achieving the Council’s objectives from the start.”
Getting the buy-in and engagement of key staff and business areas is a critical factor in the success of technology-based projects, and Nottinghamshire County Council placed considerable premium on ensuring it did so.
Anthony Collins contributed by providing clear, plain English reporting and recommendations for senior managers, directors and councillors.
The lawyers facilitated officer engagement by providing training and guidance within the negotiation team and also took a lead in managing and resolving the large volume of issues and documentation generated by three parallel negotiations on-going within tight timescales.
The contract exceeded the Council’s expectations in a number of key areas. Most strikingly, apart from the timescales, all of the Council’s tendered requirements were met within its £10.2m budget for the project.
Anthony Collins were integral in encouraging fresh commercial thinking that enabled Logica to match the budgetary requirements at the same time as ensuring the council got the contractual assurance it needed.
The intense but highly effective period of legal and commercial dialogue was completed, as planned, in just seven weeks thanks in large part to an efficient and positive approach combined with a good deal of plain hard work.
As a whole the project shows that strategically important public sector procurements for complex goods and services can be delivered to aggressive timescales and budgets. It also shows that systems integrators can and will adapt their business models to meet the changing needs of the public sector.
Jas Hundal, Business Management System Programme Director at the Council, said: “The Anthony Collins’ team are the best lawyers the Council has appointed for some years.
“The legal expertise was high quality, but what impressed was their grasp of the big picture. They contributed leadership and deep understanding of commercial negotiation, technology and relationships, all focused on securing the Council’s vision and outcomes.”
The legal team was headed by David Hall, Senior Associate and Technology Lead at Anthony Collins Solicitors.
He added: “Nottinghamshire used a Buying Solutions framework to great effect and the team at Anthony Collins is confident of achieving the same outcomes via different procurement routes.
“We are passionate about making public sector procurement and contracts cheaper, more sustainable and more effective, and want to provide top class professional services based on legal expertise. Anthony Collins has shown it can deliver its vision.”
Public authorities who need to achieve efficiencies, quality improvements and savings can take much needed confidence that, with the right team in place, those outcomes are in reach even in the current economic climate.
Further information is available from the Anthony Collins Solicitors Press Office.
For general enquiries contact David Hall, Senior Associate on 0121 212 7402 or for media enquiries contact Tracy Evans on 07825 064 497 or 01527 888992, email media@anthonycollins.com
Anthony Collins Solicitors
Anthony Collins Solicitors is a full service law firm with a national reputation for advising individuals, businesses, not-for-profit organisations, local authorities, and public sector bodies throughout the UK. For nearly four decades, it has been successfully combining market-leading legal expertise with a commitment to excellence and long-term relationships underpinned by a strong ethical position.
Chambers UK, the leading guide to the legal industry, recently praised the firm across its broad range of practice areas, singling out an outstanding 20 leaders in their fields.
Its Clinical Negligence team has also been recognised by members of the legal profession. In particular, the Legal 500 and Chambers UK guides recommend Anthony Collins Solicitors as one of the leading law firms in clinical negligence in the West Midlands.
David Hall, Senior Associate, is the lead solicitor acting on behalf of Nottinghamshire County Council. His profile is available at http://www.anthonycollins.com/who-we-are/our-people.aspx.
Website www.anthonycollins.com
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