Reshaping Public Procurement

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Trefnydd – in the Senedd at 1:35 pm on 20 November 2019.

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Photo of Jenny Rathbone Jenny Rathbone Labour 1:35, 20 November 2019

Thank you, Minister, for that useful information. The real food and farming conference I attended last week was very enthusiastic about the announcement that Carmarthenshire public services board had been awarded £100,000 from the foundational economy initiative, and that is precisely in order to improve their food supply chains so that they can procure local food.

I'm fully aware that somewhere like Caerphilly has been in the vanguard on ensuring that local businesses get a fair chance at bidding for local contracts. For example, there's a dairy producer that started off by just procuring to two or three schools and is now delivering services to five local authorities and a health board. And so, it seems to me that these are great examples of what can be done but that we're quite a long way from where we need to be in ensuring that the public pound is being spent on local businesses as well as ensuring that more fresh food is being served to our children and people who are in hospital.