Procurement in Practice - ThinkHouse

Robert Breedon: Good morning everybody and welcome to our ThinkHouse public sector webinar.

This is the third in the series of sessions that we have held this week. On Tuesday we held an update on case law with Chris Brennan and I know that that was very well received and we have had some good follow up questions on that. Yesterday we heard from Patrick Arben on procurement challenges and in particular applications to list the stay of proceedings.

Today we thought we would take a look at procurement in practice and what we thought we would do is that we would talk to someone who lives and breathes the front line of procurement and I am delighted to be joined by Fiona McLaughlin who is Head of Procurement for the Organising Committee for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games. That is a bit of a mouthful Fiona, so I think we will shorten it to the OC. So the format for this morning is that I am just going to throw some questions at Fiona and have a bit of a conversation between us and then we will do that for about 30 minutes, 40 minutes or so, and then we will open up for questions and if people have got questions there is a Q&A function that you will see at the bottom of your screens, so do post the questions and we will pick up as many of those as we are able to at the end. I am very mindful of today being 11 November so we will aim to finish possibly quarter to, ten to eleven so that those of you who wish to observe the silence at 11 o'clock have got plenty of time to get ready for that. So that is the overview of the next hour.

So Fiona let us just start perhaps with an overview of your role at the OC. I imagine there are different aspects to it and they get quite interesting and probably a little bit unique.

Fiona McLaughlin: Definitely unique. I always head towards really challenging roles but the OC is by far the most challenging but you know really fulfilling, it is great to be part of something that has got such a strong legacy impact to the local area and to the UK. I actually joined December 2019 so just heading for my two year anniversary and it is fair to say we have been running for delivery ever since and I am glad to say that we are in a good position, we are green to go. So my role is about the operational strategic leadership for procurement so I am in charge of how we deliver, when we deliver, if we are on time and I am that is linking with their stakeholders across the business, so FA's is the term you will hear me use, that is functional areas, departments in other organisations and we work with everybody across the business which is quite common for procurement. We tend to be quite a central hub for the spokes of the business. We also work really closely with our legal colleagues. The big difference for me at the OC is that we have had an in-house legal opportunity to work with the team. Normally I have to go externally so while we have enjoyed having the relationship with Gowling, having Gowling's secondees and having the leadership within the OC has been really beneficial to my role because it literally means if there is something we need to discuss we literally can walk across the room and have those conversations.

I also support our sister organisation Festival 2022 which has now just gone live with Unboxed, so if anybody is not aware of that please go and have a look because that is the cultural space so OC is very much about the sports, the Festival is very much about the cultural, so there are lots of exciting things happening there and also implementing the contract management assurance and recently picking up ethical sourcing as well. So it is fair to say there is no time to be bored.

Robert: Very varied role. Perhaps words here about the context in which that support is provided and then we might roll into a question or two around the some of the challenges, the external challenges that you have had to face.

Fiona: So in context of the procurements we have got a core team of procurement staff and that is flexed all through the games to meet the demands so obviously as you would expect the peaks and not many troughs to be fair, a lot of peaks, but the delivery we have had to have, we have got to be flexible so I started off inheriting one particular model, we moved to a three towers category approach. We are now looking to reshuffle that as we move into the smaller level procurements. So at peak we aimed to have about 22 and at the moment there is about 10 of us but we are recruiting if anybody is looking for OCM roles, just in case.

Robert: I might claim commission on that if it is through this particular webinar.

Fiona: I cannot claim it either Robert so I am going to have to say no but if I could I will at least buy you a coffee!

So due to the nature of the delivery model we have to be flexible and our CFO is very conscious of that, very supportive of taking that approach, so we get the support in the business when we need to review how we are structured, and it has really given a strong platform for how we deliver the games as a whole.

Robert: And then just some further context around those, I mean the games got off to quite an interesting start didn't it, in terms of stepping into the gap, and then you have had some big external challenges to deal with along the way.

Fiona: Yes, so if anybody is not aware it was originally Durban who were meant to do the 2022 and for IT reasons that was not going to happen and Birmingham stepped into the breach, and the UK is really good at literally picking up the baton and running with it and I have to say I think Birmingham has done a phenomenal job. We have had two years less in terms of operational preparation which is significant for any project but actually at this point in time we are green on our procurement pipeline and across the business, it is very challenging, so key challenges have been the late handover obviously, a moveable deadline, although I will talk about later that moved to just the one day.

Public sector delivery model, so sporting events and normally more of a public sector focus so it has been quite difficult for the stakeholder to come into an environment where they have not only got to deliver in a shorter space of time, they have actually got to get to grips with they have got to do it in a PCR 2015 environment, so our role and our colleagues in legal has been very much about supporting and educating in a positive manner on what that means and vice versa we have learnt a lot from them on how events work, how sports management works, so I think we have all benefitted from the opportunity to learn, what we have had to learn on the job and very fast.

Some of the other things, obviously Brexit, so that has had a major impact on supply markets, particularly noticed it with furloughed staff as we were tendering, so sometimes we have given additional extensions to make sure we get that through engagement and being fair and the elephant in the room is the pandemic so if you made up a list of all the things that could go wrong I do not think you would have quite pictured we would be in the position that we are in but it is a sign of the quality of people we have got in the OC, the dedication to what we are there to deliver and that focus as I mentioned before on the legacy aspect, that is our driving factor, we want to deliver a fantastic games. Hopefully as we are coming out to recovery that people can get that fun, have that family event and just have something that we can celebrate in the UK and in Birmingham.

Robert: You mentioned there the slightly different structure that you have got in Birmingham compared to how other Commonwealth Games have been pulled together and the overlay with the public contracts regulations that others have not had to grapple with clearly further afield in the Commonwealth they are not caught by what was the EU procurement rules and now the UK procurement rules. How has that worked with stakeholders and that need to get used to working in a different, I say a different environment, effectively a different set of rules and constraints that are surrounding them?

Fiona: Yes and I think to be fair it has been very challenging for them because they are already up against it with their timelines but they have raised to that challenge, they have worked with us really well. Obviously you can have some difficult conversations as we do in any public sector environment and indeed private sector but we try and do that respectfully, they know we are there to support them, we know that they have got a really difficult job to deliver, so it is about everybody working together to make sure that happens. Public procurement as we know is quite complex, for people who have not worked in it, it can be confusing and they do not understand necessarily why they have got to do it but again that has been led from the top so Ian Reid as CEO has given really strong messaging to the business that this is what we are required to do. Ian has got an understanding of the public regulations from the pre-2015 Regulations so it is well supported but it has definitely had made the delivery model more of a challenge than it already was.

Robert: Yes because sometimes people come at it, if they are not familiar with it and they see it as a bit of a bureaucratic process don't they and I think what I have been impressed in my dealings with you and your colleagues is that you see it as a way of demonstrating value for money. See it as positive, do not see it as a painful process.

Fiona: Yes and I take that approach in any organisation, even if it is a public sector so NHS, Social Housing Welfare, I always take that approach and it is as simple as facilitate rather than dictate. We do not have a choice in the regulations that we have to follow but how we deliver that messaging is part of how it gets across and gets on board and imbedded and I think people are seeing some benefits out of the process, their contracts will be very robust, I cannot take the credit for that myself, that is our legal team who do phenomenal work and all the challenges we have they share because they are part of our procurement but also have to do the contracts at the end so it is a bit of a double whammy for them so they are really the bread in the sandwich. But yes we get great feedback and even from our board members, when we go into, we have a lot of governance that we have to follow and when we go in there the feedback we are getting is really positive, really recognise the work of my procurement team, of legal, of our stakeholders and miracle is one word that gets used which I cannot disagree with because we have got a big pipeline to deliver but it is just down to the hard work and dedication of the people in the OC.

Robert: Fantastic. So if we start to get into some of the nuts and bolts of it now because we are talking about procurement in practice. What sort of number of contracts are we talking about that you and your team have been responsible for and as part of that what are the sorts of procedures? For those involved we love to hear from others about, did you use the dialogue procedure or whatever, so some idea of the scale of it and then the procedures that you have followed.

Fiona: Yes so obviously our pipeline is a live document so it is continually fluctuating and for a number of reasons, say for instance, it might be we look at things and we feel they need to be broken down more because of the nature of what they are or we want to reach all the SME market, it might be we build them up because the delivery time we have got we need a bigger contract to manage because we would not deliver it in time. There is a whole host of factors but at the moment we have got nearly 300 on the pipeline. We have delivered well over half of those, and of the ones that we have delivered the majority have been at an OG level so they have been significant, we are talking millions of pounds worth of contracts there. I made a quick note in case you asked me this, so competitive dialogue 17, competitive procedure with negotiation 14, now if anybody on the call is in public sector, and I have worked in public sector and private sector, it is quite unusual to go down those routes. We would normally play it safe and do open restricted framework and for something really special we will do something else. It has become quite a standard tool for us because a lot of what we are doing is so niche, is so bespoke, require so much dialogue with the market to make sure we are delivering the right thing in the right time that, the conversations that we have around the table which includes legal procurement, finance, the FA's of what we are trying to achieve and how we are trying to get there does require us to look at all the options and literally we might have somebody new join the team, they are given a copy of the regulations so we will have a lot of printing to do in the new year when the new regulations come out.

The reason we do that is because we do not want to sit on our laurels and just go with what is the standard or the easy, it is what is right for this delivery, what is right for this procurement, this team, this project, and that is the approach we take every time. We have even done an innovation partnership which even though I have not done which we did for our baton so it is really exciting, it is really challenging, but I think the team will be phenomenally well skilled at the end of the games and that benefits the public sector as a whole because they will be available after the games time to move into new roles.

Robert: Fantastic. So let us just dig into that a little bit more, so you have your pipeline of 300 opportunities and you have mentioned you use the dialogue procedure for some, negotiated procedure, train works where you can and so on. What is the process you go through to identify what is the right procedure for a particular requirement?

Fiona: So there are a number of factors that we will look at, so we will look at the stakeholder objectives and timescales, we will look at the values, obviously is it above or below OJEU and where does it sit and around a scheme of financial delegation, the target dates for contract awards so if we are on really tight deadlines we have got to look for a quicker award process. We do look at frameworks as a public body and an arm's length, we are expected to look particularly at CCS so we do explore those and sometimes we have been able to utilise those and sometimes it has just been too bespoke. Availability of stakeholders and the scope data so obviously we cannot start a procurement until we have got full details of what they actually want to procure. The routes that fit, so we have a matrix that goes through each of the procurement processes and our legal team have gone through that and made suggestions of when they are the best fit and what the challenges would be around those. Pre-market engagement, so you can go out with a view of how you will procure but when you get that pre-market feedback that can actually change the way you want to approach it because the market may be telling you there is a better way or we are not clear on something so that is a really good opportunity to sort of reset your thinking before you actually go to the market with a final opportunity. Including social value opportunities so social values are at the heart of everything we do, we do a minimum of 10% on every procurement, sometimes we will do higher and that is a massive key delivery that we have to report on for every single procurement.

Robert: That is a very interesting area, we might see whether we pick up on that in the Q&A around the social values. There is that range of routes there. Did you touch at all on direct awards and Regulation 32, I know that with the pandemic there was the opportunity with some of the guidance coming out from CCS and the Cabinet Office but were there opportunities for you to be able to use that?

Fiona: Yes absolutely. Generally on the lower level things, so direct awards obviously through frameworks dependent on how the set-up we have that opportunity but we still have to show value for money even if we are doing that. Sorry, what was the other part of the question Robert?

Robert: I was thinking …

Fiona: Regulation 32?

Robert: Yes Regulation 32 because I know some of the, not the urgency type things but there were some things which because the nature of the game they are just a bit unique aren't they, there is cultural.

Fiona: The cultural aspects, so we have got Festival and we have also got the cultural within the OC so we are delivering two cultural programmes in effect, both of which are going to be really exciting and have been really interesting for us to get a handle on but when we were looking for, well what is the best way, because actually most public sector, cultural, unless you probably you are working in DCMS actually you are not going to be involved and so we have had to do some learning ourselves on what are the options and obviously we had spoken with Gowling direct, spoke with our own legal team and CLO and Regulation 32 was an option for us, so where it has been appropriate then we have followed that and it has worked really well both in terms of delivery and the fastness that we can deliver a procurement, but you do need to be quite mindful of the rules that sit around it, so it is not, you know I think when it first came out everybody thought it was a get out of jail free card and it really is not, you have got to be quite diligent and we certainly are.

Robert: Shall we move on to stakeholders? With something like the games, the range of interested parties is just enormous isn't it, so who are some of those stakeholders and particularly the context of a procurement of these contracts, how did you get them involved, what were the different roles that you had them playing through?

Fiona: Ok. So I apply the same principles I would apply anywhere else really so you look at what you have got to deliver and that there is clearly key people, so procurement obviously, the FA's so they can have multiple people because there will be threads to what they are looking to deliver. So while you try and keep the project team a tight project team, the nature of the size of what we have got to deliver, it means they are sometimes slightly larger than I would normally go for. Our legal team, so I mentioned before they are there from the outset so as soon as we put something on the pipeline and we are getting close to a delivery they will allocate a legal lead and they will work throughout that process and as we step away slightly for the contract sign up, they carry on taking that through and we just become the support in that relationship. Finance obviously because of our evaluation aspects, our legacy team, so sustainability and social value, and then externally they might be other partners so we have worked closely with Transport for West Midlands, we have worked closely with West Midlands Police, and obviously CGFP also have an interest in everything that we are doing so we have quite a significant reporting on a sourcing strategy, so that is how we will start and our reward recommendation, so both ends of that project are put under scrutiny and questioned before we actually even go to the market and before we do that final award. 

I forget to mention also DCMS and Cabinet Office. So again that was a new one for me because being Central Government Cabinet Office, you know if you work in NHS or social housing or some of the other public bodies you do not have that interaction, so just for anyone on the call who is thinking of going into central government that is something I would suggest they need to read up on quite quickly when they join anything that is central or at arm's length.

Robert: Now I am clearly of the view that the most important aspect of any public procurement is the contract at the heart of it, so just interested as to whether you and colleagues in the legal team were able to, with such a vast number of procurements were you able to make use of standardised contract terms in any way, were there any examples where it was just so a unique requirement that you have quite bespoke terms?

Fiona: A bit of both is the honest answer Robert and I know our head of legal is on the call so I feel like I should almost be handing to her but I will follow the wording that I have got. The team develops standard contracts which you would expect but there has always been and I spoke earlier about flexibility of the contracts work the same way, so for OJEU level we have got the goods and services, we have got the goods and ancillary, we have the framework master supply agreements, we have got the turn key because one of our procurements was the turn key procurement of substantial size and then they have also provided us with simpler ones for the under OJEU, so working together where we have kind of looked at the pipeline, looked at what the contractual requirements will be, they have then advised us on what they can offer and obviously at the beginning we were trying to work through that as we were doing the procurements but now as the team has got bigger they have had more time to sort of have those prepped ready, but with everything you have to adapt so obviously when we had the pandemic they have then revisited all of those contracts and made sure that the clauses include things to protect the OC and to make sure we get the delivery that we need to achieve.

Robert: In that particular example in case there was a delay or postponement or whatever if might have been, we might come back and talk about the pandemic in particular in a minute. Just taking that sort of contract journey then to its next stage, to what extent have your team been involved in readiness for contract management, presumably contract management that is actually up and running?

Fiona: Yes absolutely. So functional areas are the ones responsible for contract management at the ground level so whatever contract we have awarded they then run with it and manage it. What we have put in place is contract management assurance. So we have done training, we have given guidance, we have provided templates, we have provided software tools for the KPI managements, we have got separate tools for the social value so we make sure we capture it, we measure it, make sure it is achieved. In any procurement we have all been there where you can do the best procurement in the world but if the contract is not managed, quite focused, then you can lose some of the benefits and the OC is quite keen that we do not fall into that trap, so that is the approach that we have taken. Obviously the nature and the size of the procurement pipeline we have got to deliver, we are supporting where we need to on contract management but at this point in time our focus has very much been on the procurement delivery because otherwise we do not have contracts to manage.

Robert: So just picking up on that pandemic point, and this is just sort of personal curiosity really, was we saw what happened with the Tokyo Olympics and the push back and we have had what turned out to be a fantastic Olympics in the summer, was there any suggestion that the Commonwealth Games might be put back and did that have any impact on the negotiations and dealings with suppliers at the time when we were looking at what was happening in Tokyo?

Fiona:  Yes it was really unfortunate for Tokyo because having sat here for two years I know the amount of work they will have done to work on the original deadline and you know it is a bit soul destroying for all the reasons we know about that had to move. That said, the whole of the eventing industrial is very agile. It is used to having challenges, may be not on the scale of the pandemic, but they are very agile is their approach anyway. 

My observations behind the scenes were that all of the sporting eventing calendar members came together, for the OC that was led by Ian Reid and his team, so they were at the forefront of discussing what was planned, what needed to move now because of Tokyo and they negotiated a really good outcome for ourselves where we only moved one day which was a phenomenal outcome for us actually, although some would argue another year would have been quite nice. I think we are ready for the delivery to be honest. So that was fantastic news for us, obviously there is still work that we need to do when it is even a day, so all of the contracts have to be revisited just to make sure that there was no impact on the delivery, suppliers were communicated with the business was communicated with. Every week we have a meeting where Ian gives us updates on what is happening in the business and you know it is a real touch base for everybody to sort of, even if it is not your area to get a feel for what is going on, so he kept us really well informed on them.

Robert: I am always nervous on behalf of clients when you have got any moveable dates, things like an event at the games or the other example earlier this year the census that these things cannot be moved and obviously your nightmare scenario is if you have got a challenge along the way that can just throw that timetable off course. What has been the experience with, if I talk about not sort of operational challenges here I mean formal legal challenges?

Fiona: In this point in time, no we have had no formal challenges. I think part of the reason is that obviously with the regulations you are required to give comprehensive feedback. I think we give really diligent feedback on the reasons why people have not, you know where they have scored and it is very detailed and we do that in cooperation with our legal team so a lot of work goes into that final preparation of notifying bidders and I think you have got to be respectful to the market on that, there is a lot of work involved, there is a cost involved, so you want them to go away with something that is constructive and useful that they can take with them to build into their next bids in the public sector. So that is the approach that we take, it is the approach I would take anywhere to be fair but we have particularly been quite diligent on it at the OC.

Robert: We have not dug into roles before the OC that you have had but it is quite clear you have had a broad background in procurement. What looking, I know you are not there at the end yet but in terms of the past two years what has been a particularly unique or unusual in working on the games?

Fiona: Lots of things and I will mention very carefully because I want this to very much be the OC show and not the Fiona show. When I join any business I always go in open minded and try to learn what is going on and every business has its own unique aspects. So for instance, when I worked in social housing section 20 was something I had not come across. With the OC there is quite a few, so we have already spoken about event managements are normally public sector so you are dealing with people who are used to being very dynamic, very results driven, are very conscious literally as the clock ticking around the corner from the office in our case, and your role is there to support them on that delivery, so you have to balance that with we are actually required to follow a certain process so I think as I mentioned earlier that education process of actually we are a public body and what that means is this and let us walk you through the process. Equally we have had to learn about their roles and their challenges and their demands and for sporting and cultural we mentioned Regulation 32 we have had to go out and search for, is there something that we have missed because of previous experience that we would not have done a Regulation 32, so we have been very open to that approach as well. Eventing is a very different world, I call it quite nomadic because literally people will pick up their entire lives and travel around the world to deliver another event, so they are very used to this style and working in public sector that is not the world we live in so obviously that is adjustment for both sides but I think it has generally worked pretty well. Two years less on a delivery has just been, even for me personally I would have liked another year before I joined because I was trying to put the AU and standard practices in place as I was actually doing a delivery which is not the normal way you would do it, you would set up your foundation and we were having to do both at the same time so that was quite challenging. 

Brexit, just the uncertainty so we did not know what the regulations would look like for the green papers being out there I fed back on that along with a number of members of the team in legal.  We just did not know what the impacts would be, we did not know when it would change so we are starting at PCR 2015 but at what point does it change? Do we hold on for that change? Will it give us more flexibility? We cannot hold on for anything because we just need to get it delivered. It is a broken record but the pandemic has been the most unique thing, not just for us, but for the entire global economy and workforce. I think we have actually adapted really well for that, the business, hit it hard, so we have looked at how to keep people safe in the office, how to keep people safe at games time. We have a whole team of people that are continually monitoring the COVID impacts so it really gives you confidence in an organisation when they are on it from the minute it started up, so that it really assuring and good to hear.

Robert: Fantastic. My final question Fiona is, clearly when the games take place next summer that will be an incredibly proud moment for you and colleagues and for everyone at the OC, but up to this point in terms of the procurement role that you have undertaken, what are you most proud of so far over the past two years?

Fiona: There are lots of things I am proud of but without any shadow of doubt it is my team. I know that is going to sound a bit of a cliché but we are green because of the hard work of my team. They have worked incredibly hard, they have pushed their skillsets and learnt and normally in any public sector body you have your work plan and you have quite an extended time to deliver it, probably the exception is NHS and the COVID PPE I would say is probably the nearest to what we have had to do and obviously the far stronger impacts, but they have really knuckled down, worked well with the stakeholders, really challenged themselves and looked for other ways to deliver so we would not be in the position that we are in if it was not for them. Sitting behind my team obviously are all the supporting functions, I keep mentioning legal but legal almost feel like me twin in the business that anything we do we are so closely linked it almost feels like we are one team at times. Our value is that delivery so if somebody asks me what is the value that we add to the business, it is the fact that we have delivered phenomenal social value outcomes and legacy as I mentioned before is a big factor of why I joined the OC. We have delivered it on budget, we have delivered it on time and we have met the needs of the stakeholders as described to us so I do not know if any of my team will be on today because I did not actually share with them I was doing this one but just publically I just want to thank them for all of their hard work.

Robert: That is great, thank you Fiona. I encourage people to keep posting some questions. We have had three of four through already and actually Fiona you have mentioned legacy and social value, we have had a couple of questions in on social value, first one from Mark, and I will put these two together if I may, can we have some examples of social value outcomes that you have built into the contracts? How did they come about, did you identify the opportunities, did you look to suppliers to deliver that? An important aspect around how do you measure social value, there is quite a lot in these questions, I might break it down for you in a moment. Then Gerry, how have you found implementing the social value objectives and in particular you know the 10% waiting that we have to build in around evaluation, and how does that play with value for money outcome? So a little bit about how did you identify the opportunities, how did that play out in terms of the waiting and the overall assessment and a bit about measurement if that is ok?

Fiona: In terms of how we identify them, we look for social value in every procurement we do. The idea of not having a social value aspect in any of our contracts is not our end game at all. It is at the heart of the Commonwealth Games delivery model so we always do that. We have a legacy team and we work with them so as part of our every procurement they will be part of that. Identifying it would come from a number of means, we may already have ideas of how that could be, the market engagement would be part of it so we will be looking for a feel from the market as to what they currently do, what they think they could offer. We ask a variety of questions within our evaluation criteria. If we are doing competitive dialogue we will spend some time talking through that. In terms of how we assess that, we do monitor it very closely so we all know there are instances where things are promised in the contracts and particularly in the social value space but it is not actually followed up afterwards, and the same with KPI's, we have taken quite a strong diligent approach so we actually have a team that work on that specifically. We report on our social value outcomes. We actually have a legacy director who works across the partners as well so it is a really strong area of the business and quite rightly so. Some of the things we can get is, it can be anything from learning and skills, there is the usual things of apprenticeships but we have gone much further so it can be a forest from Seven Trent, so if people have not gone and looked at the feedback on that it can be about skills and training, it can be free legal advice. There is such a wide variety. Obviously one of the things that the Commonwealth wants to do is target those elements of the community but do not always get the opportunities that are out there, either because they have not got the training or they have not got the appropriate clothing to go for an interview or a variety of things. Then we have got our volunteers, so any of our volunteers get training, they will get certificates at the end, so there is a whole range of that and to be honest Robert I would probably suggest that the OC could give you a really good session on social value and talk about it in much more detail than I can but just to finish off with we manage it through by using software, so we have got some software that has just been put into play, we are just starting to see the reports coming out of that. We have done it manually up to that point so that we can really get under the skin of what we have asked for and really start breaking down beneath it what the actual impact of that been, so it is a really great question, really important to the OC and well worth a further session for you I would suggest.

Robert: It is great to have some of those examples that you have given Fiona because I know in the context of social value it is often quite challenging depending on the nature of the services, what are the opportunities for that, so I think we will take you up on that offer to explore that a little further.

Fiona: Hopefully our legacy team will be appreciative of that and not tell me off.

Robert: There is a separate question that Gerry has raised throughout, we mentioned the different procurement procedures that you adopted for different requirements and I think we spoke a little bit about some of the factors but what about the actual decision making process, the sort of matrix used to say right for this particular opportunity is it suitable for restricted open or dialogue, a bit more detail around that if you are able?

Fiona: Yes so we have a matrix that a legal lead worked on for us so we review that. As I mentioned earlier there is a number of factors that come into that so timescales are a critical one and as we get closer to games obviously that is going to be much harder to run with a big competitive dialogue this close to games but it is certainly not ruled out. The other aspects that we will look at can be, can we break it down into small lots, is there a framework available to us, so there is a whole host of aspects that go into that and it is what are we trying to achieve from the deliver so if it is something that you are offering to the market and it is very obvious what you are looking to deliver or you are being very firm in how you want it delivered, then that naturally leans you towards certain procedures. If it is more of an open conversation of this is the objective but we are open to other ways of how that could be delivered then some of the competitives give you a little bit more flexibility, what I would always say is you cannot underestimate the benefits of that market engagement. I would never work on your assumptions when you are going into a procurement because you can look at it and think well obviously this would be best delivered this way and this model would work and this type of contract but when you got to the market you can get different feedback and I think in the current climate that we are in with Brexit and the pandemic where the working patterns of those supplier markets has changed because we have all had to adapt, those assumptions probably are not as strong as they would have been beforehand, so I think that is another factor I would bear in mind when you are looking at your options.

Robert: A final question from Andy. You talked about innovation partnership procedure Fiona and the baton, that is the first time you have used that so how did you go around planning the use of that and in particular what are your thoughts on using it, were there particular benefits that came, I know the end result is an absolutely fantastic piece of technology but the procedure itself for the first time you have used that, what were your thoughts around that?

Fiona: Yes to be honest it was one of my procurement business partners that ran it so I do not want to steal the thunder from the person who actually ran that. It was really interesting actually and it was not something we had naturally have gone for but it just, when we looked at the way we wanted to deliver that, the concept of a competition for the design for instance, that does not really lend itself to anything but innovation partnership so it was not a case of this is the design we want and we go out to the market, so rolling back to the conversation we have just had about knowing what you want to achieve, we know we wanted a baton, we knew the kind of elements we wanted to bring, it needed to have that Commonwealth story within it, that is not our area and there were people out there who clearly are really skilled and we had some fantastic options on the table but taking that forward from the design stage to the manufacturing stage that was why that particular procedure was such a good fit and as you say, what has been developed is stunning, the complexity of it, the design is very simple and smooth lines, the colours of it are replicative of Commonwealths. We have, as somebody holds it gives the heartbeat of the person holding it, so we can see that the heartbeat of the Commonwealth Games. There is so many, I am not an artistic person but for me when I saw that I actually felt slightly emotional just looking at what it actually would mean to people within the Commonwealth when they were taking it round their country so to be part of that, however small the part, was really special.

Robert: Super. I am going to take one last question that Karen has raised, I am going to do that before I get completely blinded by this. So market engagement, I have always been an advocate of market engagement and I know it takes a bit of time and people worry about the impact on the timelines. How did that work out for you? What were some of the areas that you engaged with the market on? Is there an example may be of something, well we were not expecting that when we entered into the engagement and how did you balance it with the timelines given the pressures you had and the immovable date?

Fiona: I have not got any examples immediately to mind. It can be a variety of things. We have a standard project plan that we have developed. Basically we filter it by the process. So if nobody is doing that at the moment that worked really well for us so all the steps are there, we filter by the process and we build it in. Market engagement is always there. There are rare occasions where we do not use it but generally we do because 1. it can solidify your thoughts currently on how you should be approaching it; 2. it tells the market that this is coming, so now you have got the pin notice anyway and we use that as part of it so you can just say we are planning on coming to a procurement in six months, but actually making them aware and saying this is what we are thinking give us some feedback. So we will have some standard questions and then we will probably have some little bit more bespoke dependent on what we are going out for and then the feedback you get from that can be actually we think it would be better if you broke it down, or on occasions we have even had it where they have felt we should go and use the framework for what we were planning to do. So it can really range in terms of the feedback that you get but it will either solidify your thoughts already or it will give you pause for thought where you look back at it and go actually we need to change it completely or more likely there are a few tweaks we can do which will actually open it up to more people in the market which obviously is what you always want to do, it is always about the whole point of PCR is open it up to competition. So we found this worked really well and we do take the feedback on board and have made changes along the way on the procurements.

Robert: Great. I keep saying I am my final question but Gerry's great question, can you see that in the Q&A there Fiona? So it says you are clearly enthused by the challenge of delivery but how do you decompress? I know from seeing and talking to you and the team it is an incredibly pressurised environment isn't it so how do you and your colleagues deal with that?

Fiona: You go through peaks and flows so through the pandemic we were so focused on what we have got to deliver, we were working from home like many people and we worked long days because the work needed to be done, we were all really enthused about doing it and you are not going to have the social aspects that you had. It has probably been harder to manage coming out of the pandemic because you kind of set the expectations of that delivery model where you have worked 10 and 12 hour days. I keep in touch very strongly with all of my team because I think mental health is a big factor that we have all got to be mindful of. We do not badger but we do encourage them to take their leave. If we thought somebody was struggling we would manage that with them. So all the things you would do in any other business really. For me personally, I am just about to go away for the weekend so that is my decompress and it is also sharing that load with each other so everybody in any environment has times where they find it a little bit tougher than others but sharing that with your colleagues, my team are really really supportive of each other. I have worked with some fantastic people over the years but this team for me are really special. So I think just keeping a check on each other, being supportive, and also just doing a welfare check on yourself occasionally which we are all prone not to doing and I think that is just an important piece of advice but thank you for that question and that feedback.

Robert: Finally just looking forwards, it would be great to keep the team together, I suspect that is not going to be possible is it? But have you come from elsewhere seconded, have you got places to go back or are you sort of new into a role?

Fiona: You mean after we leave the games?

Robert: Yes after the games.

Fiona: I am going to take a very long holiday and break and then I will probably go back to interim. So I came out of that specifically for the games, it was not something I would have considered for anything else because I had only been doing it for 18 months but the games were so special it was so important to the local area, I just really wanted to be part of it. For me for the team I think their future careers are going to rocket. So next year as you know only too well we will get the new regulations in and based on the green paper there will be a lot more flexibility then we have ever enjoyed and for people who have not done the wide range of processes that we have done, that can be a little bit scary, I think every time the regulations change it is well what do we do now and we are really concerned about doing it right. For my team I think that is going to be a much easier transition because they have been pushed to, I hate the term think outside the box, but I cannot think of a better one at the moment, but really push the boundaries of, you know, have we looked at all the options within the regulations, have we really explored this is the quickest best way and also the resilience of working in something where you are leading on multiple procurements at any one time. So I think the gift we will give back to the public sector some really talented, skilled, enthusiastic people to try and fill that very shallow pool we have particularly in the Midlands for procurement professionals. So any part that we have played in that journey for them I am proud to be part of.

Robert: I think that is a wonderfully positive note to finish on Fiona. So thank you so much for your time this morning. Thank you for those who have dialled in to listen and thank you particularly to those who have raised some great questions over the last 15 minutes or so, so Fiona thank you very much.

Fiona: Thank you and Robert thank you for the opportunity for sharing the OC story and thank you everyone at Gowling for your support so far, we do appreciate it.