Innovative Procurement

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Trefnydd – in the Senedd at 2:08 pm on 5 February 2020.

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Photo of Rebecca Evans Rebecca Evans Labour 2:08, 5 February 2020

I'm grateful to Hefin David for raising this issue and for his particular interest in it. We believe that the focus of the foundational economy accords very well with public services boards' own well-being plans, which reflect their local priorities. Many of those PSBs have identified developing the foundational economy as one of their local priorities within those well-being plans, and we've been engaging with them since last summer to explore what support we're able to give them and what help we can provide in delivering on those ambitions.

So, we convened a workshop where we explored the potential of public procurement to deliver foundational economy objectives that will help drive up local well-being. And, since that, now we've also shared a report that was produced for Welsh Government by the Centre for Local Economic Strategies with PSBs, and we've had some good discussions with them on that. I can say now that CLES has been appointed by Welsh Government to provide support to those public services boards that wish to implement progressive procurement programmes. Welsh Government is funding that piece of work. So, we've had expressions of interest from several PSBs, and there'll be an initial pathfinder procurement project to commence next month. So, we are now starting to motor ahead with the work that we're doing with the PSBs, and providing funding to get that moving.