had in the past. And the savings programs are beginning to hurt citizens. Whether it’s in American cities - where they are literally taking light bulbs out of every other street light to save energy, creating a lot of security issues; or in London, where they’re cutting programs to prevent domestic violence. And of course the people who suffer most are the people who rely on public services. e-Adept: An innovative navigation system for visually impaired residents
The City of Stockholm established an objective of becoming the most accessible capital city in the world by 2010. Initially, investments were made into physical adaptations of pedestrian crossings, bus stops, playgrounds, installing ramps or hearing devices in public buildings. Yet these measures did not fully meet the needs of visually impaired residents and the local community petitioned the Local Authority to find better solutions. The early stage development was funded by the Swedish Post & Telecom Agency, with other Agencies collaborating closely to deliver the project. Through Citymart, suppliers were sourced from a diverse pool and offered the opportunity to submit possible options. As a result, consulting firm Astando was selected and data that was previously only available to public sector agencies was used to digitise the pedestrian and cycle road network across Stockholm. Opening up access to public sector digital property facilitated creative use of the data. The data was already being collected and maintained under other programs, ensuring a high degree of accuracy (and hence safety). This led to the development of the e-Adept navigation aid, which is delivered through a mobile phone application, GPS receiver, pedometer and digital compass. The partners worked closely with around 200 vision impaired residents and organisations, such as the National Association of the Blind, to design the system. Involving the citizens helped to design the solution around their needs. For users, the solution has broken a long history of dependence.
That's a reason we’re seeing a lot of influx - cities are really scared of cutting services and are desperately looking for alternative ways of doing it”. (Citymart interview)
Around the world Local Authorities (municipal governments, cities) are struggling with significantly reduced budgets, whilst also facing increasingly complex social and environmental challenges, as this quote illustrates. In this context, there is growing interest in how procurement functions can be configured to achieve ‘more for less’. As discussed previously, the incorporation of horizontal policy objectives into procurement strategies is gaining attention as a result. Citymart’s model is similarly gaining attention, as it offers a brokering service that opens up alternative ways to achieving best-value that are not dependent on reducing the quality or quantity of products or services.
As public sector entities, Local Authorities must comply with the procurement regulations of their jurisdiction (national, State/Province). These requirements include a wide range of rules designed to ensure probity requirements and that best-value is delivered. These requirements are usually based on strict NPM-style interpretations of best-value that use competitive processes to drive cost savings. Through its market research, Citymart identified that these approaches considerably limit scope when the focus is on innovative products and services, and that they also limit the broader diffusion of innovative products and services across public sector jurisdictions.
A significant contributor to these barriers is how Local Authorities communicate about the products and services they are interested in procuring. Citymart found that this generally occurs late in the process, when commissioning phase decisions have already been made. Commissioning phase decisions include scoping the needs to be met, specifying the relevant policy objectives, and developing an integrated and nuanced best-value proposition for the activity. As discussed previously, proactively exploring for-social-purpose options at this earliest stage of the procurement cycle improves the potential for generating a broader conceptualisation of best-value through the activity.
However, as this is not generally the way Local Authority procurement is handled in practice, the channels used to communicate with prospective suppliers are particularly important. Citymart found that the communication channels commonly used are quite narrow, with the three most common being via webpages, internal communications and public strategic plans (Citymart interview). This limits the pool of respondents to those already ‘on the list’ to receive notifications, those already monitoring these fairly generic public communication channels, and those already known to the procurement team. Once responses to an Expression of Interest or Request for Tender are received, the verification and selection processes can also be quite constricted. Procurement staff tend to rely on their accumulated knowledge and informal contacts to source and then verify the capabilities of prospective suppliers. Despite significant documentation being required at this stage, Citymart found that because unknown suppliers are considered high risk this material is often referred to only as a formality:
“In a survey of 50 global cities we undertook in 2012 as part of the Agile Cities Initiative we found that none had an explicit mission or method to solve problems. And that 80 percent responded that they only trust solutions from companies they already know”. (Citymart interview)
A narrow consideration of possibilities and alternatives then flow through to the contract award stage, with ‘business as usual’ approaches tending to prevail. Citymart reports that as a result, innovative suppliers are faced with fragmented marketplaces that are difficult to navigate in terms of identifying the potential demand for their products and services, and for identifying possible buyer- partners with whom they could test and pilot new approaches. These factors then flow on to limiting the establishment, stabilisation and growth of suppliers with significant potential for impacting complex social, environmental and local economic development issues.
The limitation of opportunities is further compounded by concentrations in the market, particularly around ‘smart cities’ initiatives. In this area Citymart advises
that some of the large global firms provide pro bono consultancy and strategy support to Local Authorities, on the understanding that restricted tender processes will be used, if and when opportunities arise. These types of arrangements are often taken up by public sector entities, simply due to lack of market knowledge and limited resources to engage strategically in market research and other sourcing phase activities.
However, Citymart is working with Local Authorities that recognise they need to become smarter and more agile in how they address complex challenges, and understand that how they structure their procurement processes can play a key role in this. Local Authorities around the world account for US $4.5 trillion in annual global public procurement spending (Agile Cities 2013, p.8). Trajectories in their procurement sourcing behaviour therefore has significant potential for unlocking resources that could support the development of innovative and for- social-purpose suppliers, and through these contribute to growing and strengthening diverse economic practices and entities, around the world.