North Yorkshire Council has pledged to give more support and guidance to SMEs to help them compete effectively with larger competitors to secure public sector contracts.
The council expects to spend more than £600 million spent on contracts with the private sector during the current financial year alone.
A small and medium-sized enterprise called Go4Growth was recruited in 2021 to design a programme to bridge the gap between smaller enterprises and the public sector. This work has helped smaller, local and diverse organisations to develop the practical skills to enable sustainable growth through accessing and securing opportunities with the public sector.
Go4Growth offers free support for companies aiming to work with the council and other public sector organisations. Through this partnership, 250 suppliers were supported in 2021/22, with 86 per cent categorising themselves as micro-businesses or sole traders and 14 per cent stating they are small businesses.
Go4Growth’s director Gill Askew said: “Since we were recruited in 2021, we have built strong and productive working relationships with the public sector in North Yorkshire.
“We have been able to deliver support to small and medium-sized enterprises and voluntary and community and social enterprises across the county to hundreds of local providers.
“The single council will provide greater access to a broader marketplace of providers who want to secure growth within the public sector, both directly and indirectly with the authority.
“It means that we will be able to increase the breadth of support we are giving, ultimately supporting more local economic development.
“We’re really excited about what the future has to offer and we’re looking forward to providing more support to help North Yorkshire’s businesses and voluntary organisations to grow.”
The launch of a single authority to cover the whole of North Yorkshire will bring in millions of pounds of savings by having contracts for a single organisation, helping counter the challenging inflationary pressures amid the cost of living crisis.
Council leader Carl Les, said: “We recognise the important role that smaller businesses play in the success of North Yorkshire’s economy, bringing in vital investment and supporting tens of thousands of jobs.
“As a council, we have a firm commitment to helping these smaller enterprises flourish, and they are key to helping us deliver services to hundreds of thousands of residents across the county.”
North Yorkshire’s economy is heavily slanted towards smaller businesses and there is a total of more than 32,700 micro, small and medium-sized enterprises alongside 90 large businesses in the county.
Contracts with small and medium-sized enterprises worth hundreds of millions of pounds were signed by the previous eight authorities that merged to form North Yorkshire Council, which launched at the start of April.
The former North Yorkshire County Council alone spent £549 million on procurement during the last financial year, including £269 million with small and medium-sized enterprises – 55 per cent of the total figure.
Of the 5,021 suppliers which the county council worked with during 2022/23, a total of 2,765 were small and medium-sized enterprises and the ambition is to increase this number even further with the launch of the new authority.
In 2022/23, 55 per cent of the total spend was within the local economy, which resulted in the county council working with 2,145 local suppliers. A total of £62 million of the county council’s spend – the equivalent of 11 per cent – was with 703 regional suppliers.
By joining up services and maximising spending power in its first few years, North Yorkshire Council is set to recoup between £30 million and £70 million, which will become annual savings.
However, the high rate of inflation and growing demand for services such as adult social care will mean difficult decisions and creative solutions will be needed to realise the multi-million pound savings.
Deputy leader and executive member for finance, Cllr Gareth Dadd, whose portfolio includes procurement, said: “The opportunities that we have now as one council to provide efficiencies of scale by signing contracts for a single organisation are set to bring millions of pounds of savings.
“These will be especially important as we face such a challenging financial situation with the current level of inflation and the cost of living.”
In the past 12 months, one of the largest procurement exercises, the Social Care Approved Provider Lists which delivers support to people in residential settings, their homes or providing day services, has been secured.
The work involved in the exercise highlighted some of the barriers which the voluntary and community and social enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises report when trying to do business with councils.
A tailored engagement programme was developed to support providers through the application process and encourage more smaller enterprises to engage with the public sector. So far, 70 per cent of providers – a total of 216 – which have been appointed to the list in North Yorkshire are small and medium-sized enterprises.
The new Procurement Bill, which is due to be introduced by the Government within the next year, will provide more opportunities of making procurement quicker, simpler and more transparent while still delivering value for money and including specific criteria in deciding the award of contracts.
It is hoped that this will level the playing field for small and medium-sized enterprises and drive economic growth across the UK by reducing costs and making it easier for businesses which are bidding for contracts.
