Selling to City St George's

The Procurement Team is part of Finance, under the leadership of the Chief Financial Officer. We are a centralised team based in the Clerkenwell campus. We support the institution in terms of its tendering, contracting and supplier relationship management responsibilities. We work very closely downstream with colleagues in Purchasing and Payables (Purchase Order and Invoicing activities) and with the dedicated teams of Management Accountants upstream who support budget managers across the institution.

We practice a Category Management methodology, looking across the institution at common requirements, and focused on those significant areas of spend:

• our physical estate, and the facilities and works that maintain it
• our IT and communications infrastructure and applications, and
• other key corporate activities such as:
  • marketing and engagement with prospective students
  • services to support our students’ physical and mental health and wellbeing, and
  • goods and services targeted at not only enhancing the student’s experience, but also their progression through their programme of study, and their prospects of employment (or further study) afterwards.

A lot of our tenders are advertised, either on Contracts Finder (Contracts Finder - GOV.UK), or the Find-a-Tender-Service (or FTS) (Find high value contracts in the public sector - GOV.UK). These two Government Portals will be combined from February 2025 to become known as the Central Government Portal. The Government has provided step-by-step online guidance for new suppliers. This content will be updated as more information becomes available.

This influences how we buy. We must be (and be seen to be) acting impartially, transparently and inclusively in our Procurement Activities. Our decisions must be arrived-at objectively and fairly, and we are obliged to give feedback on decisions we have made.

Under PA23 we are also obliged to share publicly what we intend to buy, as well as our contracts and how those contracts are performing (or evolving over time)

Guidance on the specific requirements of the Act and Regulations can be found by following this link (Information and guidance for suppliers - GOV.UK).

We buy a huge range of goods, works and services. Not all our activities are high-value, and so we have to maintain our own set of regulations to capture everything, even when the purchase value is hundreds of pounds, not hundreds of thousands. See the following section, Our Policy Framework and Regulations.

City St George's is a member of the Southern Universities Purchasing Consortium (or SUPC), and thereby has access to a range of national framework agreements, which represent a quicker and more efficient way to buy. Suppliers will already have bid for, and been awarded to, these Frameworks, and when we use them, we can only use the suppliers that have been awarded.

The following link provides information on how to become a supplier to SUPC: Become a Supplier - SUPC.

Other Frameworks are available from organisations like Crown Commercial Service, ESPO, NHS Shared Business Services, Crescent Purchasing Consortium, NEPO and others. Being awarded to such frameworks, when they are advertised, can give you access to new customers.

Similarly, CCS and other organisations provide this kind of guidance, for example here: Information for buyers and suppliers | public procurement | CCS

Outside Procurement law, CSG is also governed by a number of other Statutes and Regulations, which are reflected in our institutional Policy framework.

We are bound by the Data Protection Act 2018 (or DPA) and UK-GDPR. We will ask questions about how you will keep any personal data we share with you secure, and confidential. This is of such importance that your answers may make the difference between your bid being accepted or rejected. Find out more about City St George's expectations in our Data Protection Policy.

We are also bound by the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA). When we are asked, we must disclose information we hold, unless it would fall under an exemption. We may be obliged to disclose information about a contract we have with you. We will seek to consult with you if practicable and will exercise our right to use the available exemptions, but the ultimate decision on what we share with the request rests with us. For more information, consult our Legal Documents and Policies or contact the Information Commissioner’s Office.

City St George's must also ensure that we, and our suppliers, comply with Anti-Bribery, anti-Money Laundering, anti-Facilitation of Tax Evasion and Criminal Finances legislation. We will ask questions about any convictions you or a member of your staff may have as part of our tendering process. For more information, consult our Legal Documents and Policies.

In certain circumstances we must make sure that how we engage with individuals is appropriate and complies with HMRC regulations, particularly IR35. Sometimes you may wish to be paid via your Personal Services Company as a supplier, but the nature of the engagement (the type of activity and who controls how, what and where) may mean City St George's has to treat it as ‘Employment’.

We will make the criteria we use to award the contract appropriate and relevant to the specifics of the goods, services or works being purchased, or any associated values or government policy requirements. They will be based on a balanced scorecard that considers the technical/functional/quality benefit of the item with the competitiveness of its pricing. We will also consider other values-driven criteria (see Reflecting Our Values below.)

This balance is quantified by each criterion’s contribution to the overall award, and depends on a number of factors which the project team will have considered in depth. These contributions are known as ‘Weightings’ and will typically be expressed as a percentage, for example:

• 35% = Functional characteristics
• 25% = Technical characteristics
• 40% = Price

The specific criteria, the weightings attached and how we intend to score tenders to make that award decision will always be included in the documents we share with you.

Where the value of a purchase exceeds £2,500, City St George's will require the stakeholder to submit an e-requisition (or eReq). If the eReq is approved, you will be sent a Purchase Order.

City St George's has a ‘No PO no pay’ policy. If you are asked to begin delivering, even if there is a contract in place, you should insist on receiving the Purchase Order beforehand. The PO is your only guarantee of payment. If you submit an invoice, but there is no PO in place to match it against, you will experience delays in payment and – if it is discovered that the regulated process has not been followed – you may not be paid.

Please insist on a PO in all cases.

City St George's has its own legally vetted and institutionally-approved terms and conditions of contract. These are City St George's preferred way of framing a contract for its goods and services. Our expectation will always be that these are accepted by our suppliers who will use our contract template.

In certain very limited circumstances, City St George's Procurement may consider amending some clauses where the particulars of the contract make it necessary (for example for certain regulated activities such as Legal Advice).

In order to maintain its budgetary and financial controls, City St George's will only permit Contracts for Goods and Services to be signed by certain individuals, under the delegated authority of the President.

Where a contract is entered into inappropriately and not signed by an authorised person on City St George's behalf, that contract may be deemed non-complaint and ineffective (unenforceable). Procurement may already have been involved in a tender or in negotiating the contract, but if you need to know who should sign for City St George's, please contact Procurement in any event. The Scheme of Delegation is in the internal City St George's Regulations linked above.

City St George’s Sourcing tool is BiP Delta. When we advertise a tender via Contracts Finder or FTS, the Notice will contain a link back into the Delta Portal. This link, or the information associated with it, will contain an Access Code. This code will allow you to see the tendering documents and respond to the invitation to tender.

If City St George’s is using a Framework Agreement, this will be by Invitation Only. City St George’s will use the contact information provided to the Framework Owner to send the invitation out. The invitation is an automated email from Delta eSourcing (for example ‘noreply@delta-esourcing.com’). It will contain the link back into Delta to access that opportunity. In some instances, this may end up in your spam or junk folder.

We are passionate about reflecting our non-technical and non-commercial values in our procurements, so you may find there are questions in our tenders about your own policies, procedures, strategies and values.

City St George’s has adopted the UN Global Goals (THE 17 GOALS | Sustainable Development) as a framework to express our environmental, sustainability, social value, ethical and people-focused values.

We may ask you how you:

• Promote equality and inclusion
• Prevent and manage bullying and harassment
• Give back to your local community
• Promote waste reduction and prevent pollution
• Reduce your carbon impact
• Combat Modern Day Slavery
• Encourage SMEs and Local Business to work with us
• Monitor your own supply chains for all of the above

This may be one of the areas we consider when awarding the Contract. From February 2025, under PA23 we will be empowered to award contracts that explicitly include these values-driven requirements, and we will be aligning our procurement outcomes to the National Procurement Policy Statement (NPPS) Guidance: National Procurement Policy Statement (HTML) - GOV.UK. We are always more comfortable working with organisations who take these things as seriously as we do!

Equality Act 2010 * City, University of London

Sustainability policies and reports * City, University of London

Modern Slavery Act statement * City, University of London

City St George’s is also a member of the Islington Anchor Institutions Network (or IAIN), led by Islington Borough Council, which aims to work with and for the local community to improve relationships, provide Social Value benefits and promote local goods and services where possible. Information on IAIN is here: New network of major Islington employers and key organisations to reduce inequalities and help build a thriving local economy | Islington Council News

City St George’s has its own values, core considerations that are specific to who we are. We are always keen to ensure that anything we buy will contribute to improving our students’ experience while they study with us, their progression through their programme of study and their employability when their studies are complete, and they are entering the world of work. We may also ask you to explain how those benefits are realised when we are inviting tenders for goods and services.

As part of a tender process. we may also ask whether you would be willing to offer opportunities for our students to work closely with you (for example whether placements or internships may be available, or if you would be willing to facilitate training or workshops), and may contact you if you are awarded the contract to discuss those opportunities.

You will be approached either by the person in the business who has offered you business, or by Procurement, so that we can set you up on our Finance system. Currently this is done via an MS Word Form, which asks for:

• Your company name, address, legal form and contact details
• Your bank account details
• Your insurance cover limits
• Whether you have been convicted of certain offences (fraud, for example)

If you are a Personal Services Company you may also be asked to complete an HMRC Checking Employment Status for Tax (CEST) assessment to ensure we have complied with our obligations under IR35. More information here: Check employment status for tax - GOV.UK

If you have been awarded a contract following a tender exercise the form will be shortened as you will already have provided information on your legal compliance.

At City St George’s, we use insurance to support our management of risks. We have a wide portfolio of Insurance policies designed to ensure we are covered in the event of loss. When we contract with you, we will expect you to be insured, too. The types of insurance we expect will vary depending on the contract we are letting, but may include:

• Professional Indemnity
• Public Liability
• Product Liability
• Employer’s Liability
• Cyber Security Insurance

Each policy will have as limit. Typically, the limit we request will be calculated based on the level of risk that the contract may expose us to and will not necessarily relate to the financial value of the contract.

If you are a Personal Services Company (or PSC) used for a self-employed individual, and you are engaged with us to deliver consultancy services, where there is the possibility that you may propose a substitute to delivery the services, City St George’s may require your PSC to hold Employer’s Liability Insurance at least to the statutory £5m limit.