Public Procurement

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:19 pm on 18 June 2019.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:19, 18 June 2019

I thank Angela Burns for those points. Of course, there is guidance issued to procurement services here in Wales. They have to operate within the wider rulebook that the United Kingdom and the European Union operate within, but the purpose of that guidance is to focus the minds of those people who carry out procurement on best value rather than lowest cost in the way that they award contracts. The considerations that Angela Burns has just outlined about impacts in local economies, on employment in those places, in the avoidance of environmental damage through food miles and so on—all of those are legitimate considerations that smart procuring takes into account when it is focused on getting the best value out of public spend, and not just simply the cheapest price.