Businesses and public sector buyers will come together in Cardiff on 11 November for Procurex Wales, as the impact of major procurement reform becomes clearer.
Around 18 months after the Procurement Act came into force, there are signs that the way public bodies and suppliers engage with each other is changing.
Greater transparency, earlier engagement with businesses and a growing focus on outcomes rather than simply purchasing goods and services are beginning to reshape the market.
But the emerging picture is not simply one of reform successfully completed.
For Wales, the next challenge could be harder: ensuring public bodies have the capacity, capability and data to turn the new procurement framework into better economic and public-service outcomes.
That was one of the central themes to emerge from a Business News Wales podcast discussion with Grahame Steed, Director of Public Policy and Research at BiP Solutions, and Richard Dooner, Programme Manager at the Welsh Local Government Association, ahead of Procurex Wales.
Steed said there were already positive indications around transparency and visibility, alongside signs of changing behaviour among buyers.
One particularly important development has been increased use of pre-market engagement, where public bodies speak to potential suppliers before formally taking a contract to market. Analysis by BiP Solutions suggests Welsh local government has been among those embracing the approach.
The significance goes beyond procurement process.
Earlier conversations can allow buyers to better understand what the market can deliver while giving businesses greater insight into what public organisations are actually trying to achieve. At the same time, increased visibility of public sector opportunities is attracting more businesses into the market.
That creates greater competition and potentially gives buyers more choice, but it also creates challenges for both new suppliers and incumbent contractors.
Steed said suppliers themselves now need to make better use of the information becoming available, understand buyers’ wider priorities and increasingly approach public procurement as potential partners rather than simply vendors.
For Dooner, however, the picture from inside Welsh local government demonstrates why changing legislation is only part of the journey.
He said procurement practice is evolving, but implementation has also brought additional administrative requirements at a time when procurement teams can be relatively small and the work they undertake is becoming increasingly technical and challenging.
The danger is that the ambitions being placed on procurement continue to grow without the capacity required to deliver them. That matters because Wales is increasingly asking public procurement to achieve much more than simply buying a product or service.
Councils are looking at how spending can contribute to local economies, employment, skills, SMEs, fair work, supply chains and social value.
Dooner described that as a continuing journey rather than a sudden transformation, with social value increasingly being delivered through thousands of individual decisions and contracts across public services.
The challenge now is making those ambitions manageable and measurable.
Overcomplicating social value with large numbers of measures can become counterproductive, he argued. What matters is identifying outcomes that are meaningful and proportionate to the procurement concerned.
That reflects the wider challenge facing procurement reform. The architecture may have changed, but legislation alone cannot deliver the outcome.
Wales now needs procurement professionals with the capability to use the new system effectively, suppliers that understand how to engage with it and better data showing not simply where public money is being spent, but what that spending ultimately achieves.
There is also a growing economic dimension. With around £11 billion passing through Welsh public procurement annually, decisions about how that money is spent have implications far beyond individual contracts.
They can influence supply chains, employment, business growth and investment across Wales. That potentially makes procurement an important economic policy tool, but only if public bodies have the resources to use it strategically.
Neither Steed nor Dooner presents procurement reform as an unqualified success or failure.
Instead, their assessments point towards something more significant. The rules have changed, and behaviour is beginning to change with them.
The next stage will determine whether Wales can convert those changes into stronger suppliers, better public services and greater economic and social value from the billions of pounds the public sector spends every year.
And that could prove to be the real test of procurement reform.
Grahame Steed and Richard Dooner talk about this and more in the special podcast episode, From Legislation to Real-World Impact: Is Procurement Changing in Wales?. Listen here:
