How we buy goods and services
We spend over £300 million a year on works, goods and services. This process of buying from suppliers is called procurement.
Our procurement procedure is open, fair and transparent.
Our procedure
We have a central procurement team that:
- supports council employees to follow the rules when doing business with external organisations
- helps us secure the best value for money
- is constantly learning and building upon best practice.
All employees follow Contract Procedure Rules when they take part in procurement.
We also regularly conduct premarket engagement with potential suppliers. This gives us an opportunity to gather information and understand what the market is capable of. It gives potential suppliers an opportunity to understand, discuss and influence draft specifications before we formally launch a tender process. This helps us with informed and effective procurement.
You can find out more about our procurement processes within our constitution.
Social value
The government requires councils to consider social value during procurement.
Social value is:
- improving the health and wellbeing of local people and the local environment
- providing skills and employment opportunities
- promoting the local economy.
As a potential supplier, we’ll look at how you contribute to social value, for example by reducing your carbon emissions or tackling inequality.
You may have different ways of making a positive impact to our community. The social value we expect will be set on a case-by-case basis.
Current contracts
We publish all the contracts we hold in our contracts register on the Kent Business Portal.
Procurement strategy
We’re currently working on a new procurement strategy for the end of 2025 to 2030.
This procurement strategy will:
- outline our priorities
- show how procurement will contribute towards our One Medway Council Plan.
We expect this new strategy to be approved in October 2025. We will publish it online after.