Helene Holden and Lucy Ross,
Scotland Excel
Funding growth
Scotland Excel has delivered a solid return on investment for councils over
the past ten years. However, the financial pressures they face are such that we
cannot solely rely on core membership fees to sustain our organisation. We will
therefore continue to explore alternative funding options and new business
opportunities to underpin future growth.
To achieve this, we will develop an appropriate
governance structure which balances business
flexibility and oversight. We will ensure that growth
is planned and sustainable over the longer term, has
no adverse consequences for the delivery of existing
services, and capitalises on partnerships which
increase public sector efficiency and offer clear
benefits for all stakeholders.
We will maintain our commitment to improvement
of our business infrastructure to ensure that
the quality of our services remains high, and we
can continue to meet or exceed the needs of our
key local government members. As a centre of
procurement expertise we will continue to seek
professional accreditations which validate the
quality of our work.
Progress to date
Scotland Excel has explored a number of options
for generating additional funding and income. In
2017/18, we secured funding of c. £750k over two
years from the Scottish Government to explore
collaborative procurement opportunities within
the adult care and support markets, and deliver
procurement capability services for housing
associations. This latter project has generated
associate membership income from housing
associations, with the potential to offer chargeable
services to this sector.
We have also developed partnerships which
capitalise on synergies and/or generate income.
This has been achieved successfully with SEEMiS
through the provision of procurement support for
national ICT resources, and by working with Crown
Commercial Services (CCS) to migrate councils
to their light vehicles framework where councils
benefit from better pricing through economies of
scale. This latter partnership has enabled Scotland
48 | Shared Vision, Shared Success. Our Corporate Strategy 2018–2023
Excel to redeploy procurement resources and offers
the potential to share in the CCS supplier levy.
Although we have not traditionally made use of
supplier rebates or levies as a funding source, this is
a common practice among public and private sector
procurement organisations. In 2017/18, with the
agreement of our Joint Committee, we retained a
£135k rebate generated by our groceries contract to
create a new team delivering small value contracts
on behalf of local authorities. This service was
developed at the request of council procurement
teams and, in its first nine months, delivered
contracts with estimated savings of c. £750k.
Over the past few years, we have developed a
number of learning and development and business
change services which generate income. Other
sectors have shown interest in our accredited
learning and development courses, delivered
through the Scotland Excel Academy, and there is
potential to extend these to central government,
health, further education and housing. There has
also been increasing demand from local authorities
for our chargeable consultancy services.
Our previous corporate strategy has laid the
foundations for growth. Examples of investment
in our people and systems, and improvement
initiatives undertaken across all areas of our
business, can be found throughout this strategy.
These investments have been made to ensure that
the quality of our services remain high, and we can
continue to meet or exceed the needs of our key
customers in local government while seeking new
opportunities.
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