Public Sector Contracts

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:32 pm on 21 May 2019.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Nick Ramsay Nick Ramsay Conservative 1:32, 21 May 2019

Mike Hedges has pretty much asked my supplementary question word for word, so I'm thinking on my feet. But if I can use some personal experience—that's always a good way out of these problems—a few years back, a chief executive officer of a small engineering firm in Chepstow, contacted me and said that he found the Welsh Government procurement form system much easier to fill out than across the border, which was to the Welsh Government's credit, but at the same time he said it was more difficult for smaller firms, at that point in time at least, to procure the work, and they often went to larger firms that were able to put in more competitive bids upfront at the start, which might not necessarily have played out further down. So, he was working in Hereford and procuring there.

I haven't mentioned him by name, but I can get you the correspondence I had with that gentleman at another time. But since I received that correspondence, can you tell us what the Welsh Government has done to make it much easier, in line with Mike Hedges's question, for small firms to access procurement within Wales?