National Advisory Group (NAG)

The National Advisory Group was established by the LGA as a forum for senior local government procurement professionals to meet quarterly and discuss a range of procurement issues affecting local authorities. Each of the nine regions is represented, and the group reports quarterly to the LGA's Improvement and Innovation Board, as well as to our Chief Executive sponsor, Martin Reeves of Coventry City Council.

Background and governance

The Local Government Association is the national voice of local government. We work with councils to support, promote and improve local government.

Councils have long recognised the importance that strategic procurement (our definition of strategic procurement includes procurement’s role in ‘commissioning’, ‘collaboration with the wider public sector’ and ‘contract management’) can play in delivering efficiencies, contributing to reshaping and transforming service delivery as well as ensuring value for money and positively influencing the impact on local, regional and national businesses and jobs. Councils have been subject to massive reductions in funding and unavoidable growth pressures on the resources it has available to deliver services to our communities.

NAG will report regularly to the Improvement and Innovation Board of the LGA and to our Chief Executive sponsor, Martin Reeves of Coventry City Council.

NAG will work with Cabinet Office, MHCLG and others as appropriate through the Strategic Steering Group.

A NAG chair and Vice-Chair will be elected from the group. It is expected that the Vice-Chair will take over the chair role following re-election.

Secretariat will be provided by LGA.

Role, remit and membership

LGA convene this group of senior local government procurement professionals, who extensive experience of working at a senior level in local government and the wider local public sector with at least one representative per English region and one representative for Welsh councils. We will work as one cohesive voice in order to:

• share good practice to maximise the benefits of good procurement, as well as communicate and support local government colleagues to adopt any good practice identified
• uphold the strategic position of procurement in supporting wider policies including the National Procurement Policy Statement; improvement; added social value and efficiency savings for the sector
• identify and work to remove barriers to efficient and collaborative procurement
• account for procurement’s role in relation to other groups and bodies such as clinical commissioners, and initiatives such as commercialism, devolution and combined authorities
• develop, influence and improve access to procurement related training for local government and our public sector partners.

NAG will provide leadership on issues relating to local government procurement through the National Procurement Strategy and providing one cohesive voice in particular on the following workstreams:

• Showing leadership through supporting our elected members and senior managers, lobbying and working with central Government teams on policy, influencing stakeholders and engaging with suppliers and our professional buying organisations. Specific projects may include:
  • provision of guidance and e-learning materials for elected members and senior managers
  • engaging with the sector’s key suppliers through our Strategic Markets, Insights and Supplier Relationship Project (SM:IRP)
  • encouraging collaboration between councils, regional groups, sector themes and with the wider public sector
  • working with councils to consider a national approach to council’s procurement data.
• Behaving commercially through creating commercial opportunities, influencing markets, promoting the use of simple, transparent processes, reporting and sharing performance information, proper contract management and appropriate-to-contract risk management. Specific projects will include:
  • working with Cabinet Office to maintain free access for councils to Government Commercial College materials and e-learning on Procurement Act, contract management, outsourcing, procurement fraud, and so on
  • developing other local government specific skills training and making this free to council officers
  • working with LGA policy teams and with central government on market management for specified categories of spend.
• Achieving community benefits by fully capturing the additional social value that can be achieved through the procurement process, engaging with VCSE groups, SME and micro businesses to increase local economic growth. Specifically we will:
  • continue to work with social value groups (including cross-government groups to create healthy, thriving and resilient communities by embedding social value into all public sector activities, through the services that we commission and procure, and in maximising supply chain engagement with communities
  • continue to develop and promote guidance and materials that will help councils to engage better with SME’s and VCSEs
  • work with other LGA groups to develop, share and implement good practice in relation to the climate emergency.

Meetings and communications

Hybrid (face to face and online) meetings will take place quarterly.

Communications and notes from NAG meetings will be available shortly after each meeting.

Subgroup or task and finish group meetings will take place as required.

A NAG newsletter which includes updates on anything procurement related will be distributed to all council procurement officers and anyone else who subscribes on at least a monthly basis.

NAG member responsibilities

• To be nominated as a regional representative by regional procurement networks.
• To be the primary point of contact for own regions for councils wishing to raise issues of wider interest.
• To attend (or appoint an appropriate substitute) NAG meetings.
• To contribute to NAG sub-groups and to encourage wider regional participation in these groups.
• To contribute to discussions on shaping the national procurement policy agenda.
• To identify and share good practice with other NAG members and wider local government procurement networks.
• To promote the work of NAG to colleagues and networks as appropriate.
• To provide papers for agenda items one week in advance of the meeting.
• To forward communications to their own networks as soon as they are available.

NAG regional members

The contact at the LGA for the National Advisory Group is [email protected]

Terms of reference

The group's terms of reference are currently being reviewed and updated to align with its new strategic approach to meetings.