Procurement Data Talks - Contracts Detail Dashboard

To deliver compliance, councils often use the Contract Detail report to help ensure council officers are engaging under contract via Local Buy Arrangements. 

Spend under Local Buy Arrangements can be considered contracted spend; subject to the General Terms and Conditions agreed under the Arrangement by the Suppliers, in addition to any purchaser Terms and Conditions are applied. 

Now let’s start at a strategic level, where the Contract Detail report offers several significant benefits that enhance transparency, efficiency, and stronger decision-making within council. Here are some key benefits:

1. Transparency and Accountability

The Contract Detail dashboard provides a clear, consolidated view of all contracts held by a council. This transparency ensures that all stakeholders, including management, procurement and contract staff and external auditors, can have access to comprehensive information about councils' spend profile under contract, promoting scrutiny of contract values, categories of spend, and trends.

2. Cost Savings and Efficiency

By analysing the Contract Detail dashboard, councils can identify opportunities for cost savings and efficiency improvements. This includes negotiating terms with suppliers based on volume discounts or better pricing, consolidating contracts to leverage purchasing power and eliminating redundant contracts or suppliers. Such optimisations help maximise the value received from each public procurement dollar spent.

3. Risk Management

The Contract Details dashboard can aid in identifying and mitigating risks associated with suppliers and contracts. This includes monitoring contract compliance, ensuring adherence to regulatory requirements, and assessing supplier performance against agreed-upon spend metrics. Early detection of issues through contract reports allows for timely corrective actions, minimising potential disruptions or legal liabilities.

4. Strategic Decision-Making

Insights derived from the Contract Detail dashboard inform strategic planning and decision-making processes. Councils can analyse spending patterns, forecast future procurement needs, and align procurement strategies with broader council goals. This data-driven approach ensures that procurement decisions are aligned with council objectives and contribute to long-term sustainability and growth.

5. Supplier Relationship Management

The Contract Detail dashboard can support effective supplier relationship management (SRM). By providing historical and current contract details, councils can nurture strategic relationships with key suppliers. This fosters collaboration, innovation, and continuous improvement in service delivery and product quality.

6. Compliance and Auditing

The Contract Detail dashboard supports compliance with internal policies and regulatory requirements such as The Local Government Regulation and audit standards. This helps councils maintain integrity and credibility in their operations.

7. Promotion of Fair Competition

Access to the Contract Detail dashboard helps councils evaluate supplier diversity, assess the impact of procurement decisions on small and diverse businesses, and promote inclusive procurement practices. This contributes to a more competitive marketplace and encourages economic growth within the community.

Overall, the Contract Detail dashboard, combined with the other procurement reports provided by Local Buy, plays a crucial role in enhancing procurement effectiveness, fostering transparency, and driving strategic value for councils. By leveraging data-driven insights, councils can optimise their procurement processes, manage risks proactively, and ultimately achieve better outcomes for stakeholders and the broader community.

Local Buy’s Procurement Technology and Data Program provides councils with both a Contract Lite solution to register and manage contracts in-system, as well as a suite of data and analytic reports which includes this Contract Detail report. This supports councils in registration, management and reporting across all council contracts.

Key components of the Contract Detail report

Contracts: Including the number of suppliers, transactions, purchase orders and % of total spend, contracted spend, contracted spend % and number of contracts utilised. Procurement teams can focus their efforts and resources towards the most significant areas of opportunity in their contracts data. 

Contract Spend: Whether you are looking at all contracts or just select contracts, this metric provides a breakdown of all contracts and their associated values. 

Category Spend: Category Spend provides a breakdown of contracted spend versus non-contracted spend at the category level. This provides meaningful insights detailing which categories can be better serviced under contract. This data, filterable by many other datasets, enables council to identify suppliers (or categories of suppliers) of high value and high risk, to better understand where to focus resources.  

Business Unit Spend: By analysing business unit spend, councils can identify the amount of total spend under contract (or not under contract) at the business unit level. This helps direct focus to ensure as much spend as possible is captured under contract. 

Suppliers with Contracts: To further focus resources, the Suppliers with Contracts report identifies metrics around those suppliers that are under contract. These metrics include value, number of POs, number of transactions and the number of business units engaging with the Supplier, helping to analyse risk and opportunity.

Suppliers with NO Contracts: This report is a vital report for all councils. Where suppliers are identified with No Contracts there is a risk that this spend is not complying with the Local Government Regulation and exposing council to financial or reputational risk. Where spend is identified as not under contract, council should review this spend helping to analyse risk and opportunity.

By leveraging these reports, provided under Local Buy’s procurement technology and data program, councils can optimise spending, improve supplier performance, increase spend under contract and contribute to the overall financial health of the council.

Here are some additional tips I'd like to share with you about using these reports:

• Do not be afraid of data. It is easy to read these reports and quickly identify opportunities for council. Start off exploring want you can learn.

• Use a variety of reports to get a complete picture of your procurement performance. Don't rely on just one type of report.

• Share your reports with the appropriate stakeholders. Make sure that the people who need to see the reports have access to them. Collective thinking can deliver great data results.

• Use your reports to act. Don't just generate reports and then file them away. Use the information in the reports to make improvements to your procurement processes.

If you would like to know more, please get in contact with Glen Duff, Director Strategy & Partnerships, Local Buy via gduff@localbuy.net.au.

If you would like to gain access to the Contracts Lite solution or the Procurement Dashboards, both fully funded by Local Buy for Queensland councils, please contact our local government technology team via nexgen@localbuy.net.au.