5 PROGRESS REPORT - KEEPING THE BENEFIT LOCAL PDF 420 KB
Cabinet Member – Councillor Menna Jones
To consider
a report on the above.
*10.30am – 11.30am
Additional documents:
Decision:
To accept the report and ask the Service to
report back on the result of the 'Innovative Procurement - Social Value
Procurement Model' pilot, and also collect the data as raised during the
meeting, and report back to the committee in a year's time (or when timely).
Minutes:
The Cabinet Member and officers from the Corporate
Support Department were welcomed to the meeting.
The
report of the Cabinet Member – Corporate Support was presented, following the
members' request to receive an update on the progress of the Keeping the
Benefit Local project, which was one of the priority projects within the
Council Plan.
The
Cabinet Member set out the context and the officers provided an outline of the
contents of the report.
Members
were given an opportunity to ask questions and offer observations.
Individual
members submitted the following observations:-
·
Although the summary at the end of the report stated
that good progress had been made over the past five years in terms of
increasing the percentage of the Council's expenditure that stays local, It was
noticed that the percentage had only increased 3% over this period, and that
the figure was down compared with four years ago, and with last year. The
member understood the difficulties, but questioned the degree of self-appraisal
behind this.
·
It would be useful if data could be gathered regarding
the number of local companies who had submitted a tender but were unsuccessful,
and what feedback had been given to those companies, and then report back to
the committee within around a year.
·
It was important that major organisations in the area,
such as Cyngor Gwynedd purchased locally in order to help the economy.
·
The Preston Model was vital, but would not work effectively
in Gwynedd since it was an urban model.
·
One of the most important things we can do as a
Council is explore how we can enable local companies to join forces and work
together, and any investment committed to this would be seen not as a cost, but
as a social benefit in itself.
·
It was often said that Wales as a whole had very small
businesses, and very big businesses, but not many medium-sizes businesses – it
was those medium businesses that would create the largest benefit for our
communities.
·
We were all disappointed with the results to date, and
want to see ways forward.
On a
technical note, and referring to the graph titled 'Annual Local Expenditure' on
page 19 of the agenda, a member questioned the accuracy of the £43m figure
(capital and revenue) for 2017/18 as it was lower than the £56m figure (revenue
only). An officer confirmed that the
figure was wrong.
In
response to the observations and questions from members, the following was
noted:-
· In terms of the degree of self-appraisal, Gwynedd was just one of the few Councils that measured this type of activity in terms of keeping the benefit local. In the presentation at the beginning of the item, there was mention of introducing other measures, and this was in reference to the Well-being of Future Generations Act more than just the local percentage of expenditure. This figure had stayed quite constant over a number of years, and although a 1% change meant £1.5m of expenditure, it was fairly static. It was ... view the full minutes text for item 5