National Procurement Strategy
Single Authority Diagnostic

The English local government National Procurement Strategy is a set of 59 Value Codes (VCs) which allow a local authority to assess the effectiveness of its contract management and procurement activity.

In 2018 and 2021, the LGA invited the heads of procurement from each council in England in Wales to self-assess themselves against these value codes giving an overall national and regional picture of the status of contract management and procurement. The results are being used to:

• further develop the sector strategy

• better understand the change in focus and priorities for our councils

• allow councils to set their own priorities and desired outcomes

You can find the 2018 National Procurement Strategy and Toolkit with value codes by clicking here.

However, the LGA Diagnostics only allowed one response per local authority. The National Procurement Strategy cuts across different policy areas (e.g. social value, commercialisation, economic regeneration) which often sit in different departments and views on performance vary significantly based on the role or seniority of an individual. A single response means that an average view is captured so areas of best practice and weakness are not recorded.

The Value of a Diagnostic

A Diagnostic is not a survey. It an online assessment tool which allows any organisation to measure itself against the critical success factors (or Value Codes) for any outcome. The NPS Value Codes for contract management and procurement have predefined outcomes ranging from 1 to 5. Individuals from across the Council and its partners are invited to assess how they perceive performance from their own perspective.

Value Codes act as:

• generative constraints - people can't help but start to imagine what they can/should do to improve once it has been laid out in front of them and they've been asked to evaluate it

• attractors for passion and responsibility - when presented with a set of things that matter, the Diagnostic encourages people who care to come forward with ideas, including when things that matter seem not to be represented

• benchmark tool for Tier 1 Councils – recognised by central government for benchmarking and reporting purposes

Clear and powerful reporting

The Diagnostic results are presented in an easy to use dashboard and allow you to:

• identify current levels of achievement based on a defined range of outcomes across departments

• spot shortfalls that may exist in different departments and service critical areas

• identify pockets of good practice, knowledge and skills planning which could be shared with others

• gain positive engagement and ownership of NPS 2018 and its successors from leaders, elected members, chief officers and other professional stakeholder groups

• actively participate in regional forums and initiatives around improvement and transformation

• undertake comparative analysis in your region and even nationally

• devise clear ‘next steps’ to improve capability

Getting Started

We will support you with:

• guidance for identifying participants

• template emails for successfully engaging individuals

• access to the Diagnostic for the NPS 2018 value codes (you may choose to use all or a subset)

• system administration and query management

• status reports on participation

• instant dashboard analysis on live data

• value scores showing the range of responses

• full comment analysis including heat maps

• breakdowns by department and/or level of seniority

NB individual responses are anonymous.

Ongoing support

We can work with you beyond your Diagnostic to help you to:

• identify ‘what matters’ in the future and define ‘what good looks like’

• devise internal plans for improvement

• develop and support work and resource plans to improve outcomes down to individual department level