House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee

Call for Evidence: Public procurement as a tool to stimulate innovation

Deadline for submissions: 19 November 2010

The House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee, under the chairmanship of Lord Krebs, is conducting an inquiry into the Government’s use of procurement as a tool to stimulate innovation within industry. The inquiry will focus in particular on the Department for Transport and its related public bodies, as a working example of the current procurement practices within departments. However relevant evidence is welcomed on examples of procurement practices from other departments, and on the overarching role of procurement as a tool to stimulate innovation.

Scope

The inquiry seeks to investigate the extent to which the current procurement practices and processes in place are effective in encouraging innovation within industry and supporting the development and diffusion of innovations. It will focus on:

1 The role of public procurement as a tool for stimulating commercially valuable innovation within industry

2 The success or failure of current public procurement processes, mechanisms and tools in stimulating innovation within industry

3 Potential mechanisms and processes for stimulating innovation in industry through public procurement, and any relevant comparisons overseas

4 The impact of departmental and other government structures, processes and cultures on the use of procurement as an innovation tool, and cross-government and departmental efforts to co-ordinate and reconcile conflicts between policy objectives.

The inquiry will not cover innovation in the procurement process, such as e-procurement.

Questions:

The Committee invite submissions on the following points:

Rationale 1. What is the rationale for using public procurement as an innovation tool to stimulate

innovation within the industries on which government relies? And what evidence is there to support its use as an innovation tool?

Co-ordination of innovation and procurement policies

2. To what extent are strategic departmental and cross-government policy objectives meshed with procurement and innovation policies and how might this be improved? What cross-government mechanisms and co-ordination is in place to help to facilitate this?

Mechanisms through which government procurement can stimulate innovation

3. What public procurement mechanisms are currently used to stimulate innovation within industry? How successful are they? How is the success of such measures evaluated?

4. How might public procurement more effectively stimulate innovation within industry?

5. What lessons can we learn from successes and failures within the procurement

processes of other countries to stimulate innovation within industry?

The procurement process 6. What incentive do those working within public sector organisations have to use

procurement as an approach to stimulating innovation?

7. To what extent are those responsible for public procurement of research and development “intelligent customers”?

o Do they have the appropriate expertise to identify innovative solutions to

procurement needs? o How well do they identify when innovation could provide a solution to a

procurement need? o How effective is the identification of and dialogue with appropriate potential

suppliers?

8. What obstacles do those responsible for procurement within public sector organisations face in encouraging innovation through their procurement strategies? How might these be tackled?

9. What obstacles do potential suppliers of innovative solutions face in responding to public procurement requirements? How might these be tackled?

The Committee would also be interested to hear about any other issues not already covered by this call for evidence that are relevant to the scope of the inquiry.

The Committee will hold public meetings from November 2010 and the Committee’s report will be published during spring 2011.

Evidence should be submitted to Elisa Rubio, Committee Office, House of Lords, London SW1A 0PW. The deadline for written evidence is 19 November 2010.

Short submissions are preferred. A submission longer than six pages should include a one-page summary.

Evidence must be clearly printed or typed on single sides of A4 paper, unstapled.

Paragraphs should be numbered. If drawings or charts are included, these must be black-and-white and of camera-ready quality. Evidence should be signed and dated, with a note of the author’s name and status, and of whether the evidence is submitted on an individual or corporate basis. Only one copy is required. All submissions will be acknowledged promptly. The evidence should also be made available in electronic form as a Word document. This should be sent by e-mail to rockc@parliament.uk.

Evidence becomes the property of the committee, and may be published by the Committee at any stage. Once you have received acknowledgement that the evidence has been received, you may publicise or publish your evidence yourself, but in doing so you must indicate that it was prepared for the Committee. Parliamentary privilege will not apply to your own publication.

Personal contact details supplied to the committee will be removed from evidence before publication. However, personal contact details will be retained by the Committee Office and used for specific purposes relating to the committee’s work, for instance to seek additional information or to send copies of the committee’s report.

Persons who submit written evidence, and others, may be invited to give oral evidence. Oral evidence is usually given in public at Westminster, broadcast in audio and often video format on the internet, and transcripts are published. Persons invited to give oral evidence will be notified separately of the procedure to be followed and the topics likely to be discussed.

Written evidence by persons who give oral evidence will normally be printed with the Committee’s report. Other written evidence will normally not be printed, but published online and deposited in the Parliamentary Archives.

All communications to the Committee about the inquiry should be addressed through the Clerk or the Chairman of the Committee, whether or not they are intended to constitute formal evidence to the Committee.

This is a public call for evidence. Please bring it to the attention of other groups and individuals who may not have received a copy direct.

You may follow the progress of the inquiry from the Weekly Bulletin of House of Lords select committees. This is free, and may be ordered from Committee Office, House of Lords, London SW1A OPW, telephone 020 7219 6678. Alternatively, consult the UK Parliament website, at www.parliament.uk/hlscience.