Using Public Procurement to Support Local Businesses

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Economy and Transport – in the Senedd at 1:43 pm on 10 July 2019.

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Photo of Lee Waters Lee Waters Labour 1:43, 10 July 2019

Thank you very much for the question. I think that's an excellent example of good practice. I know from my own constituency, where, in local schools, children themselves are unhappy at having to have plastic bottles to drink their milk with, but the local authority doesn't have the flexibility in their contract to amend it at this stage and we're talking to them about that. So, the work we're doing with the public services boards is to see how this good practice can be spread. Kevin Morgan, from Cardiff University, often talks about best practice being a poor traveller in Wales, and that leader and laggard are cheek by jowl—you'll have one local authority doing cutting-edge work and the neighbouring authority lagging some way behind. So, how we even out these inequalities is something we're working on now with the public services boards. I met with a selection of them just a few weeks ago and there's a great deal of enthusiasm for using the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 to address this agenda. So, I note that example of good practice, and I'll be speaking to officials to see how we can make sure it's widely understood, and see if there's potential to copy it.