Public services across London (United Kingdom) are collaborating to improve responsible procurement because of a mayoral initiative to increase the social benefits from the city’s procurement spend. For this initiative, Transport for London (TfL) has put together a team that supports responsible procurement across the city’s public bodies, including the London Fire Brigade and London Ambulance Service among others. This team, the Greater London Authority (GLA) Group Responsible Procurement Policy, is located within TfL with team members in all involved bodies.

TfL's head of the Strategy, Performance and Governance team David Wylie names a range of benefits that this approach has brought to all organisations involved. Among others, it has established a coherent social procurement strategy and has allowed procurers to share best practices across organisations. Wylie points out that especially smaller organisations now have the opportunity to tap into the experience of their peers and this way manage to achieve social objectives through their procurement.

These objectives range from general ethics in the supply chain including combating modern slavery to creating job opportunities and apprenticeships. The GLA Group Responsible Procurement Policy’s head Tim Rudin will also introduce London’s procurement strategy at this year’s EcoProcura conference (3 – 5 October, Nijmegen, the Netherlands) during the breakout session on supporting local economies and communities through social procurement. For more information about this session go here.

ICLEI Europe has also published a case study on TfL, which can be found here.