Comhairle nan Eilean Siar Honoured at National GO Awards 2015/16

Comhairle nan Eilean Siar has been honoured alongside the UK procurement community’s finest at the National Government Opportunities (GO) Excellence in Public Procurement Awards 2015/16, a sold-out black-tie ceremony held at The Midland Hotel in Manchester last night, Thursday 26 February. The Comhairle was awarded the Procurement Team of the Year Award for Local Government and Consortia, an award sponsored by 365Agile Limited.

Hosted by BiP Solutions Ltd, for the past 15 years the National GO Awards have been the benchmark by which excellence and progress in public sector procurement and commissioning has been measured.

All this year’s entries were recently reviewed by a panel of 12 judges, made up of experts in UK procurement and commissioning, including Sally Collier, Chief Executive Officer, at the Crown Commercial Service; Simon Hill, Managing Director at YPO; and Peter Smith, Managing Editor at Spend Matters Europe.

Grahame Steed, Managing Editor of GO and Lead Judge, said of the Awards: “What a fantastic night! In another sell-out event, many of the UK’s most high-profile public sector organisations gathered to celebrate procurement excellence at the National GO Awards in Manchester. These Awards were the biggest yet – a record number of finalists complemented by a record number of attendees, competing in a record number of categories. Well done to all of this year’s Winners and Highly Commended; the competition in each category was fierce and to take home a GO Award really is procurement excellence at its best!”

This year’s winners included some of the country’s leading procurement innovators, including the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, University of Glasgow and South London SEN Commissioning Programme.

Comhairle Convener, Cllr Norman MacDonald, said, “I am delighted that the Comhairle’s work in procurement has been recognised at a national level. We spent £19.6m locally in the last financial year which was 44% of the overall total.  This was an increase of 8% on the previous year and demonstrates our continued commitment to do all we can to support our local suppliers and improve competitiveness in a challenging procurement environment. The Comhairle also made procurement savings of £866k in 2013/14.”

Helen Mackenzie, Head of Exchequer Services at Comhairle Nan Eilean Siar said, “This award shows that even the smallest councils in the United Kingdom can excel in procurement. Working as a team we’ve pulled together to deliver real benefits to people in the Western Isles. The improvement which has been made is down to everybody who buys things for the Comhairle, not just the procurement and creditors team.”

Visit www.goawards.co.uk for further details.

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