northlincs.gov.uk

29        (10) FSB REPORT: LOCAL PROCUREMENT – MAKING THE MOST OF SMALL BUSINESSES – The Director of Policy & Resources submitted a report which provided details of the findings from a national survey by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) on Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) engagement in local government-wide procurement.

The FSB’s published national report outlined a series of recommendations that it considered the local government sector as a whole should be adopting to support their local economies and in particular SMEs.

An analysis of the FSB’s findings and recommendations had been undertaken at local level as part of the council’s continuous improvement approach and commitment to supporting SMEs through “exemplar” procurement practices, and upon analysis through the position statements that accompanied the report.

The report provided details of the surveys undertaken and a summary of the key findings.

It was acknowledged that North Lincolnshire Council had an established and widely recognised track record of implementing measures which supported SME’s and local firms, details of which were outlined within the report.

Resolved – (a)  That the findings from the FSB’s national survey together with the position statement and gap analysis be noted, and (b) that the continuous improvement actions detailed in appendix c to the report be approved.

Note: Reports are in Portable Document Format (PDF) and therefore require a suitable reader to view them. A reader can be downloaded free from the Adobe website (full instructions for downloading the reader are provided on the site).

Where there is no report this is because it is exempt, as it contains information which is considered to be of a confidential nature, as detailed in the Local Government (Access to Information) Act.