Jonathan Lewis Email & Phone Number

United Kingdom

Hm Treasury And 70 Whitehall, Westminster

The Cabinet Office SME Panel was set up by David Cameron and Francis Maude, Minster for the Cabinet Office in March 2011 to contribute to the significant changes planned to procurement processes and practices to the benefit of the UK's legions of innovative and agile smaller businesses. The Cabinet set a target at the time that 25% of all UK government tenders should go to SMEs by the end of the administration. That target was achieved and then increased by Teresa May's administration to 33%. Substantial progress is still being made and today significantly more public procurements as a proportion of all procurements are awarded to smaller businesses than was the case in 2011, Procurement is now more understandable and manageable by smaller firms and tenders take less time to be awarded.

All English Regions

Buying Better Food is a £2.5bn annual procurement of food being consumed by patients in hospitals, children in schools, service personnel in garrisons and offenders in prison. The procurement will stimulate local farmers and food producers to grow and supply these public sector needs locally via a national distribution system. It will bring quality produce with competition, provide investment in rural communities, bring new jobs, apprenticeships and affordable housing and significantly reduce the distance food currently travels which will contribute to the nation's net zero target by 2050.

Kingston Upon Thames, United Kingdom

Live Group is a digitally based events company operating globally for major international clients. The company also specialises in delivering UK Government events using a wide range of digital media tools both online and within venues. Key skills include engagement processes which enable people to exchange ideas, reach conclusions and achieve outcomes.

QPL was set up in 2010 to manage a contract to deliver communications, media and digital services across government. Having won the contract against 40 competing consortia Live Group and its two commercial partners were appointed as Tier One providers to operate the digital platform and manage the supply chain trading under the brand name Creative Choice. The contract ended in July 2014 and it is currently winding down over 12-24 months after a spend of some £20m.

See QPL above

London, United Kingdom