Mission-led procurement: Early insights from exploratory work in Camden

This insights paper examines the emerging lessons from IIPP’s work with Camden Council on public procurement - combing insights from literature, interviews, and practical experience.

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Mission-led procurement: Early insights from exploratory work in Camden | policy report no. 2023/01

For the last 40 years, public procurement has been seen as a back-office function, whose main objective was to keep costs down and buy goods and services at the cheapest price. The Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 aimed to increase emphasis on the environmental and social values enabled by procurement activity. Today, there is growing interest in procurement as a strategic lever at all levels of government.

IIPP has been working with Camden Council to explore the question: ‘How can public sector procurement support mission-oriented organisations?’ This builds on the work of the Camden Renewal Commission, in which the council included four Missions as a core part of its new We Make Camden strategy.

This paper examines the emerging lessons from the first phase of IIPP’s work with Camden Council through the IIPP Policy Studio, combing insights from literature, interviews and practical experience.  The paper is – by design – incomplete and open ended. We hope to make this a collaborative inquiry for all those interested in the practical realities of mission-oriented innovation.  We invite and welcome comment, critique and challenge, especially from practitioners and thinkers interested in enhancing the potential of public procurement to address the social and economic challenges we face today.

Reference

UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (2023). Mission-led procurement: Early insights from exploratory work in Camden. IIPP Policy Report No. 2023/01. Available at: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/2023-01