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Procurement Reform Centre Stage for Burnham
Following his by-election victory in Makerfield, Andy Burnham used his speech to put procurement reform centre stage — calling for the state’s spending power to back British business, drive reindustrialisation across the UK, and create guaranteed work placements and apprenticeships.
As a nation, we spend £300bn every year on public procurement. It is money that helps businesses grow and communities thrive. Used well, it is one of the most powerful tools a government has. However, used poorly, it prioritises process over outcomes.
This pattern occurs in every sector where public funds are used for private delivery, including infrastructure, technology, professional services, and healthcare. Processes are slow, costs increase after commitments are made, and contracts tend to go to large incumbents. As a result, social value diminishes at each step, and communities miss out on the benefits.
Burnham correctly emphasises the necessity of change. Procurement reform is often described as urgent but never treated as such. The Good Growth Foundation’s ‘Winning Back Shopfront Britain’ report identified that procurement systems are perceived to reward administrative capacity and connections, over merit and local impact and called for a series of small, targeted reforms to make progress, including levelling the playing field through neutral vendor models.
At Constellia, our Neutral Vendor Model is already showing what this looks like in practice across Government. The principle is simple: an independent intermediary runs fair, open competitions across a marketplace of pre-qualified suppliers, solving the problem of scale and reducing the risk for buyers. Our marketplace spans more than 4,000 suppliers, the majority of them British SMEs, so public money reaches the smaller firms that drive innovation and create jobs rather than being passed down a chain. The result is genuine competition, faster routes to market, and contracts reaching businesses that would previously have been shut out.
It is good to see Burnham putting this at the top of his agenda as he heads back to Westminster. At a time when Labour is looking for practical ways to deliver growth and rebuild trust in the economy, procurement reform offers a tangible opportunity to turn public spending into public benefit.
If you’d like to discuss how Constellia is approaching these challenges, get in touch.
Email info@constellia.com or call 0330 320 8020.
Published by: Rob Levene
CEO
Get In Touch
For more information, please get in touch via info@constellia.com or call 0330 320 8020.
