Series 1, Episode 2: Leading Procurement Software: How Procurement Drives Value in Social Housing with John Wallace

Sian Lloyd – 00:00:03:

 

Hello and welcome to Powering Procurement, a podcast by Atamis, where we unpack the world of procurement and supply chain management with the help of leading experts. I’m your host, Sian Lloyd, and this is the Atamis resident expert, Gareth Burch.

 

Gareth Burch – 00:00:19:

 

With nearly 20 years of experience in procurement, I may be billed as the expert, but believe me, I’m here to learn too.

 

Sian Lloyd – 00:00:27:

 

Each episode with our expert guests will see us diving into the world of procurement, understanding the opportunities and challenges facing the sector.

 

Gareth Burch – 00:00:35:

 

And we’ll explore easy wins and longer term strategies to help you rise to the challenge of driving value through your work while showing the power of procurement.

 

Sian Lloyd – 00:00:46:

 

So let’s get started. Welcome to Power & Procurement. Our guest today is John Wallace, Director of Procurement at Clarion Housing Group, the UK’s largest housing association. In his role, John leads the procurement strategy for an organisation that provides homes for 350,000 people and builds more than 2,000 new homes every year. His work is central to Clarion’s mission of addressing the housing crisis by ensuring the delivery of affordable homes and improving communities right across the country.

 

Gareth Burch – 00:01:25:

 

John brings over 35 years of procurement experience from both the public and the private sector. Having held senior roles across the industry, such as healthcare. Housing and food and beverages. His previous roles include procurement director at Metropolitan Thames Valley and head of procurement at Anchor Trust, with a track record of strategic sourcing, cost reduction and procurement transformation. John is known for driving innovation, efficiency, and positive change in large, complex organizations. John is also Chief Officer of the trade body, the National Housing Procurement Association, which was set up earlier this year. Welcome, John.

 

Sian Lloyd – 00:02:12:

 

John, it’s great to meet you on the Powering Procurement Podcast. We like to find out a little bit about the guests on this podcast, as well as your experience, of course. So that’s where I’d like to begin today and really to find out how you entered the world of procurement. Did you fall into it or were you driven into it from the start?

 

John Wallace – 00:02:35:

 

Hi, everybody. My original qualifications when I had started work was as a brewer. So I worked in a brewery in Wiltshire and a brewery in Rutland and so I’m a qualified brewer by original qualification. And at the time, I’ve been working in the brewing industry for 10 years, circa 10 years. A colleague of mine moved into the procurement team at Courage Limited, based in Staines, and suggested that I had a look at it. He said, you know, you know all about brewing, you know all about brewing materials. Why not come and start buying the brewing materials? So it was a big step. The breweries were consolidating at that stage as well. So a lot of the big brewing groups were coming together and breweries were closing. And I thought it would, you know, a commercial aspect to the career would be good. So, yes, so I started buying brewing raw materials for Courage, who at that stage were producing Foster’s Lager and producing Courage Directors. And so that’s why I started, really. I got the invitation to come down and say, it’s great, you’ll enjoy it, you know, come and try it. So that’s how I started.

 

Gareth Burch – 00:03:47:

 

Going from brewery to procurement. I’ve not heard of anyone go through that process before. And it’s testament to what the profession can open up for people. With that, you’ve such remarkable journey across both public and private sectors. Can you share a bit more about your experience and how it shaped you in your current role at Clarion Housing?

 

John Wallace – 00:04:12:

 

Yes, certainly. I’ve worked in various different sectors in procurement. So I worked in brewing, I worked in the food sector, I’ve worked in the health service and I’ve worked in housing. And what I try and always remember is what I learned during my time working in the private sector, working in very competitive industries, whether that be brewing or whether that be food, and not losing sight of the importance of suppliers and of the input costs of organisations in terms of delivery to the bottom line. The brewing industry was competitive, the food was absolutely competitive. Every penny went to the bottom line. The quality, of course, was important and was appreciated, but you really had to be commercial and working with suppliers to get the best value. And I’ve tried to apply that to my work in both in the NHS and in housing to varying degrees, really. The different sectors do have different cultures, clearly, and do have different expectations of procurement. So I’m trying to bring a bit of that private sector experience into the public sector as best I can.

 

Gareth Burch – 00:05:26:

 

And how does that transition then into the national housing procurement association?

 

John Wallace – 00:05:31:

 

That’s come really as a result of the new Procurement Act. When I worked in the NHS, I worked alongside other colleagues on something called the Healthcare Supplies Association. And when I came into housing, there wasn’t an association of that type. So when the Cabinet Office were looking for assistance in rolling out the new Procurement Act and rolling out the new Learning and Development, they were looking to identify what they call single points of contact for each of the public sectors. And I offered to help on housing and that allowed me then to build a very broad network of procurement people across the country, across all the housing associations. And then the logic really would be to say, well, OK, that’s great and we’ll get the procurement act embedded. But surely we should be collaborating and having that community working on other value added ideas. So as part of the Cabinet Office Learning and Development activities, they were seeking for each sector to put in place Communities of Practice. So we have ten Communities of Practice across the country and the leaders of those informal groups that meet with me on a monthly basis to review how we’re getting on with the rollout of the Procurement Act. Each of them has taken a role on the Council for this new association, whether that be one of the teams responsible for Learning and Development. Another one is responsible for Collaboration. Another one is responsible for Membership. But it’s still a very early days. We’ve launched it in May at Procurex. We hopefully will launch it as a company for the 1st of April. So that’s the intention is to get the membership on board by the 1st of April, all being well, and then we’ll start rolling out the value-added activities there.

 

Sian Lloyd – 00:07:17:

 

Well, John, coming from a news background as I do, I’m always really interested in developing and moving stories. And that certainly sounds like one to me. It’s very recent, as you say, that it’s been set up. Perhaps looking forward a little bit, what are you hoping the ultimate goals and aims will be? Just a little bit in a bit more detail.

 

John Wallace – 00:07:38:

 

Well, in terms of the association, there are a number of strands of what we would call value added activities that we think will help. So the first one is in relation to building a community of procurement people in the housing association. So we’ve got 250 housing associations that have procurement employees. We want them all to come together to feel as if they’re part of something. And as a result of that, we may well lead on to further actually procurement collaboration. We are concerned about learning and development. And so standardizing some of the learning development tools that we have whether that be category management, supplier relationship management, contract management, etc. So learning and development will be a key focus, as will career development as well. We’re all well aware that it’s very difficult to recruit good procurement people. And so part of the role will be to try and facilitate something around that. There’s something about leadership as well and being the voice of procurement for the sector. You know, lobbying government for any changes, trying to influence any future procurement at changes that go forward. So there is that aspect as well. It’s pretty broad range. We haven’t really said that we’re going to buy together yet. This is the early stages of building a community and a network to support each other through the changes of the Act. And then to collaborate on further projects after that. So it’s about leadership. It’s about having a voice for the sector in terms of procurement. And then it’s about developing our colleagues that work in the sector to deliver more value. So ultimately, it’s all about delivering value. Clearly, but it’s still early days. We’ll have to see. We haven’t got any metrics yet to say how much value we’re going to deliver over the next five or 10 years. That’s for a later stage, I think.

 

Sian Lloyd – 00:09:24:

 

Really great to hear about those developments and the ongoing work that you’re involved with there, John. And of course, you’ve got a very big role with Clarion Housing Association. And perhaps at this stage, as we start delving into things in the podcast, it would be good to understand the context that you’re working in. How do you balance the need for cost reduction against the context of working in social housing and the core values that you have in that sector?

 

John Wallace – 00:09:54:

 

There are a number of strands to procurement in the housing sector at the moment. And that’s slightly different from working in the private sector, where it was really about getting, yes, good value. But good value was related to the quality of a product or a service in housing and in the public sector more generally. We encompass all the pressures that the housing associations are under at the moment. And they are significant, following Grenfell, following the damp and mould issue, following uncertainty in relation to rent increases. So there’s a number of issues that we’re facing on a day to day basis that weren’t necessarily in place five or 10 years ago. So it’s a different way of having to manage the organisation. In terms of procurement, that means that we do have to balance all of those, but we have to balance additional aspects. For example, the sustainability, the carbon agenda comes into it. Social value is very much a key part of what we do as well. So when we are seeking to put contracts in place, those are also at the forefront of our mind. If we pick up on, say, the social value, we have a charity as part of Clarion called Clarion Futures. And they have income from our deals. They have income from our deals. They then translate into new jobs and apprenticeships and trainings and IT training, etc. And we track all of our procurements and how much they are potentially going to deliver. And we also therefore track the conversion of what a supplier is contractually committed to, to the actual delivery of that value. So we work very closely with Clarion Futures on that. We have a major initiative around sustainability and regeneration, and we’ve had some government funding on that. But we also encourage our procurement activities, that are part of sustainability policy as well. And that incorporates a number of aspects that are part of our sustainability, our organisation’s long-term sustainability strategy. And then we come back to more fundamental aspects of procurement, is how can procurement add more value? And I think it’s fair to say in housing, maybe five, ten years ago, procurement was mainly seen as a compliance activity. So making sure that the procurement activities that take place all meet the public contract regulations requirements and now the new Procurement Act requirements, which is not necessarily for me what procurement is all about. Procurement is all about driving value. So while we’ve made every attempt to get the compliance right and we measure and we report on that, the focus for my team really is to develop their commercial skills so that they have better understanding of the markets, better understanding of cost as opposed to price, better understanding of how to take maximum advantage of the new Procurement Act, which is for me, it has its good and it has its not so good. But the flexible procedure is going to be a major advantage to us. So that means that my team can develop their commercial and negotiation skills and not just be a team that turns the tender wheel. So and all that will drive more value for Clarion. What is interesting is while we’re going through these challenging times as a sector, there’s more of a pull. On procurement than there ever has been in the sector. So when I worked in the private sector, there was a huge, always a pull on procurement to deliver more value. In the public sector, that’s not necessarily the case, although that is changing, noticeably changing at the moment. So what we’re trying to do is ensure that we can respond to that pull. So there’s a number of areas that we’re working on. And that gives you some examples of, you know, whether it’s value for money, whether it is sustainability, whether it’s social value. And also we were doing more work on contract management as well. We’re not there ye but we want to standardize the way that the business manages the contracts going forward as well. So a lot of things on the table at the moment. So what are these situations where in deflationary times, it’s always an opportunity for procurement. So when organizations are struggling or future plans don’t look as rosy as they might do, then there is an opportunity and we must be able to take it.

 

Gareth Burch – 00:14:01:

 

Yes, it’s quite interesting because listen to John about the Clarion futures. It sounds like a great concept where actually through the use of procurement, it starts driving that innovation through different value opportunities, not the traditional cost reductions or supply consolidation, but actually how you link the value back to your social responsibility. It’s a brilliant job. And for me, it’s those innovation opportunities uneasy to do. And it’s got to be testament to yourself and the team at Clarion how you do that.

 

John Wallace – 00:14:42:

 

I would be taking too much of the credit, if I’m honest. Clarion has always been very strong around social value and community resilience. And… All I’m trying to do really is to try and continue that work with the Clarion Futures team and deliver more value, have more of a focus on it. So I’ve been with Clarion now for three and a half years. And what they want to do in terms of making a difference, they’re strapped like making a difference. They do believe it and they are working towards it. And it’s a great organization to work for from that perspective. So all the things that I might want to do from a procurement perspective, I do get a whole lot of support so it’s very positive. But, you know, but it’s a challenge and we’ve got to continue that positivity, really.

 

Sian Lloyd – 00:15:30:

 

And John, in terms of that social value that obviously is so important to Clarion, does that also carry on down the supply chain? Is that something that you’re looking at with your suppliers, what social value that they provide as well?

 

John Wallace – 00:15:44:

 

I think that’s the key area for us is every time we put a contract in place or we go to the market, we include social value. And we hope, as part of our tender requirements, that they will provide social value in whichever type we feel is important. Now, we do have a matrix of different social value types that they can, to a degree, pick from and provide. But that’s included in the vast majority of our tendering activity. There are some particular areas where it’s not appropriate, but the majority of them, it is moving through that. And what’s great is that every business partner in my team is responsible for delivering social value as part of their objectives. And then we’ve got a relationship with Clarion Futures, where my procurement team and Clarion Futures meet with the different directorates across the business to identify more social value, how the suppliers are performing, how much social value is actually materialising. And the numbers are staggering, really. So it’s very positive. But there’s always more we can do.

 

Sian Lloyd – 00:16:45:

 

John, one of the things that you mentioned when you were setting the scene and talking about the sector that you work in was compliance and regulation. Tell us exactly what you have to comply with. What are the considerations for you?

 

John Wallace – 00:16:59:

 

The main compliance area is in relation to the public contract regulations. They are now being replaced by the Procurement Act 2023, which goes live in February. In addition to that, though, we also have the Building Safety Act that we need to consider and incorporate into our procurement activities. And we have the Leaseholder and Landlords Act in relation to something called Section 20, which is a requirement of us to communicate with residents regarding any procurement activity that we’re undertaking. The main focus of most procurement teams in housing associations is this Procurement Act that’s coming through. As I said at the start, historically, procurement teams were focusing on ensuring compliance to that Act, to the regulations and now to the new Act. Now, that diverts your limited resource away from strategic procurement. So what we’ve got to try and do is simplify that compliance side, reduce the amount of admin that’s required, so that the resources that we have available to us can be used for strategic procurement. So most most HAs will have a standard amount of money they’re willing to spend as a budget for procurement. And we have to maximise the strategic delivery rather than the administrative delivery of procurement activities. So and the change going forward, and we’ve got to see how this plays out, is there’s a lot more requirement for administrative activity in the new Act than there was in the old regulations. It’s a function of the requirement for us to be a lot more transparent about every stage of our procurement activities. We’re not quite sure yet as a sector what that means in terms of resource. And that’s because we haven’t seen the central digital system that we’re going to be using that’s part of the new Act. But also we haven’t seen the complexity of the notices to any great degree yet. So we haven’t done anything yet. So until we actually get onto the system, start doing procurements, we won’t really know. I am determined both for Clarion and for the sector that we don’t lose the impetus that we’ve created, which is about what procurement can really can deliver over and above the administration side of it. And so when I talk to procurement directors in the sector, a lot of those have been around the block like me. They’ve worked in other sectors. They can see what is possible from procurement. And they are also like me determined to ensure that we don’t take a step back as a result of the new Procurement Act. The Procurement Act does have some benefits. And maybe we’ll talk about those later. But at the moment, we are a bit nervous to say how much of our current resource will be diverted to meet the compliance requirement.

 

Gareth Burch – 00:19:41:

 

No, and it’s really interesting, isn’t it, John? A lot of procurement functions within the regulatory world get caught up in red tape because we have to. And there’s no kind of getting around it. And it is one from experience with a different regulatory background. It was one where you have to make sure you’re compliant and how much time you then spend. On more administrative activities. Does take the efficiencies and the effectiveness of procurement away. I know personally, I relied on technology to help me try to combat that and try to remove some of that admin through technology, which I know is not always possible. Within your role within Clarion, how are you leveraging technology to streamline your procurement processes?

 

John Wallace – 00:20:32:

 

We are in the middle of implementing a new procurement system across the organization. It has a lot more functionality to it than we would have had previously. And we are expecting that that system implementation will provide a lot more of a system solution to this administrative work that we have at the moment. So we’re really optimistic about that. And that’s to a degree why I’m not committing to any business cases around resource, because I want to see how the central system works within the cabinet office, but equally how our implementation of our new procurement system is progressing. But so far, so good. You know, we are we’re pleased with progress. We hope to go live within the next couple of weeks with a soft launch. But that will tell us more. And I think that the system provider is also working with the cabinet office on the notices and some of the requirements of the act as well. So, yes, it’s all three of us trying to move it in the right direction, I think so.

 

Sian Lloyd – 00:21:31:

 

John, going back to your opening comments again, because they were so wide and they did give us so much to think about. Sustainability was something that I particularly picked up on and would like to know a little bit more, really, about sustainability within the social housing sector in terms of procurement. How important is sustainability?

 

John Wallace – 00:21:52:

 

I think it varies in the sector. I can give a view about where we are. I think with Clarion, we’ve been on a bit of a journey. First of all, sustainability, Carbon Zero, was very much a focus of our new build areas, our development team. From a procurement perspective at that stage, so that’s going back two or three years, I took a view that I needed to understand what the carbon footprint was of our suppliers. And there’s a number of desktop exercises that actually probably tell you what you know already. So we did the exercise and it did tell us what we knew already, which is the biggest carbon aspects for our organisations, our new builds and our repairs are. We have a director of sustainability that is driving the sustainability agenda across the whole organisation. We’ve always been committed to it, and it’s one of our key strategic strands as an organisation. But what does that mean in terms of procurement? Well, that means that we work very closely with the director of sustainability and the broader initiative that are under his remit to make sure that we’re procuring services appropriately to meet that new requirement. So a good example would be regeneration of existing properties. And we had a government grant to start work on that. And really, our role in that is to support the procurement requirements to meet that requirement, if you like. We will have certain aspects of sustainability in our tendering process, and that will be everything from modern slavery to waste management, etc. But fundamentally, we are providing additional support to the initiatives that are going on rather than doing it ourselves, if that makes sense. It’s important that we work closely with the business. So when they are driving innovation and when they are buying air source heat pumps or ground heat pumps, etc., that we are supporting the business in getting access to those products, to those services. So in terms of innovation, the innovation sits within the business. It doesn’t necessarily sit within procurement. All we are doing is responding to that innovation. And different approaches that are being identified and generated by the business in terms of sustainability. So it is a big focus. It can be sensitive in terms of balancing the carbon measures that we’ve got versus value for money versus so where best do we put our money? And so, for example, there are something called regos where in the utilities area where you’re buying gas and electricity, where you can, in effect, buy these standard items which demonstrate that you’re buying from a renewable source. That has its own market and has gone through the roof. And we’ve had to step away from that because actually we don’t feel that gives us what we want. It might hit a target, but actually it’s not really delivering the sustainability objectives that we have. If that market changes, we might go back into it. But we work closely with the sustainability team. One of my team members is responsible for that alignment. So supports them in any requirements they have, supports them in any procurement requirements regarding accreditation in support from the financial aspects. And now, as you will be well aware, to receive loans, to generate funding for new developments, there’s a huge focus on how compliant we are related to ESG. And we provide a lot of information to support the organization’s position on that. So it’s exciting times. It’s a bit daunting for everybody. I know we’ve got one hundred and twenty five thousand properties. And I think I heard yesterday that ninety thousand of them will need something related to regeneration if we’re going to hit the carbon targets. But so it’s very much a key focus. And it is a bit like juggling. You know, we have rent caps. We have sustainability. We have building safety. We have damp and mold. And you’ve got to keep all those balls up in the air. And we try and make sure that where we needed to support or needed to get involved that we do so.

 

Gareth Burch – 00:25:58:

 

Now, as you rightly said, sustainability is such a big theme at the moment across multiple sectors. One of the things picking up what you just said was quite interesting. The desktop exercise for the carbon footprint. Was that… Through technology or through good old Excel.

 

John Wallace – 00:26:17:

 

Well, we bought in that service. So it was, no, I think it was basically Excel because at that stage, the calculations very simply were based on how much we spend, one, across subcategories of expenditure. There are industry standard carbon emission numbers that were then applied to those to give us a feel. But what was quite interesting was one of the largest carbon footprints came from the legal profession and that’s because, like most HAs, we spend a lot of money on legal costs. And so it really wasn’t a reflection of their carbon footprint. So there were a few anomalies that we had to put to one side. But it did reaffirm the conversation that we had that we know where. It’s the raw materials that go into our new builds. And it’s the equipment and the parts that go into our repairs area that are the ones that really soak up the carbon.

 

Gareth Burch – 00:27:16:

 

Now because it’s definitely been a hot topic for me over the past two years particularly. Please, can you provide me with all this spend data, category data, contract data to ship off to our carbon accountants who will then, I don’t mean this in a negative way because there’s a lot of complexities here, but take potentially four to six months to come back with this is the footprint. And this is one of the challenges, particularly I’ve come into business with, is how could we make that easier for procurement functions? How do we give more real-time monitoring? Because we’re hearing things very much that clients are now building in. Sort of carbon footprint reductions into their core business and deliverables which then could affect people’s bonuses So they’re getting the people brought in Into the into the reductions in the positive way if you’ve not got more frequent reporting How can can you make that difference? I think it’s really difficult to to how you deliver that messaging internally. But it is, I think it’s such a valuable, valuable work stream, which is going on. But for me, I suppose with sustainability over the next 12 months, what are your key objectives? And how could you potentially, coming back to innovation a little bit, how could you bring a bit of innovation from both public and private sector to help you?

 

John Wallace – 00:28:43:

 

I think from a procurement innovation perspective, we have to look outside sector, really, to drive innovation, I think. And I’m not sure we do a huge amount of that. As a sector, we’re quite parochial, I think. And therefore, we are beginning to look more and more outside of our standard procedures and processes to get ideas of what we can do. And clearly, there’s a huge market out there of people that want to sell you different solutions. And that’s great. And let’s look at those. From a strictly procurement perspective, I don’t think there’s any value in using emissions figures and spend figures now. I think that’s just, you know, if you want to reduce your carbon, then you just reduce your spend. And that doesn’t mean you’ve really impacted on the unit of carbon produced. I think it’s quite an imbalancing act, really, because some of the innovations that we’re seeing coming through, we have to find a way around the procurement regulations to allow us to use them because they might be completely innovative. They might not be on traditional framework agreements. They might not be on, you know, we might not have been using the housing sector before. So there are some challenges there. And I suppose this is a stage of where procurement is in housing, is in the private sector, procurement would be fully involved in the supply chains of all the suppliers and understand where the carbon is going back down a supply chain. That’s not where we are in housing. At the moment. So I think one opportunity would be a future direction is to look at the supply chain that is involved in creating a bath or a kitchen or timber or whatever. So that you’re looking at each stage of that and see what improvements you can make. That activity is going on within the directorates related, but it’s not strictly, it’s not being run by procurement. And I think I want my business partners to have more of an understanding of supply chains. So that they can understand costs more from a value for money perspective, but also where does, where is the carbon. Being generated in that supply chain and doing something about it. But it’s still early. From that perspective, it’s still early days.

 

Gareth Burch – 00:31:01:

 

Because within the housing association, are your supply chain starting to use or migrate more to the science-based targets? Because it’s one, you take IT providers particularly. You’ve got your SKU and you’re buying a device. And now you’re starting to see more science-based targets coming through on a SKU. Level data. But then within your, there’s so much more potential carbon being produced. It’d be really, I think it’s just fascinating to know what’s going on further down.

 

John Wallace – 00:31:38:

 

I don’t think we have that, really have that knowledge at the moment. I think it’s a bit early for us to have that. However, as I said, I think there’s some regeneration activity, a lot of regeneration activity on our properties. So they’ll be looking at the carbon footprint of our properties and making improvements there. The new build’s the same, so they’ll be using lower carbon raw materials to go into the properties. But I’m not sure how much further down the supply chain we’re going to. And I think that will come hopefully with time. But at the moment, there is so much effort going on to improve the sustainability of our new builds and our current properties. Actually, we’re not looking at the carbon of our existing supply chains. We’re looking at new materials and new products and services to help us meet the target, as opposed to carving carbon out of pre-existing supply chains.

 

Sian Lloyd – 00:32:41:

 

And one thing that I wanted to come in on there, you were talking about innovation, perhaps just taking it back to a little bit wider, if you like. And a question for you, Gareth, actually, you know, how far do you think that procurement should be the place of innovation, for innovation, and be driven by innovation?

 

Gareth Burch – 00:32:59:

 

I think that’s a really good yet difficult question, to be honest. I think innovation, procurement has a huge part to play in innovation. But I think it may not be the innovation incubator, but almost the catalyst or a part of the catalyst to driving innovation. It’s having that open door policy, working with different business areas from sustainability through to the compliance teams. Getting everyone open, talking freely. And trying to identify areas of innovation. I know if previously you, from a procurement perspective, I’ve worked in siloed areas, and breaking down silos is difficult. And when you don’t have that natural free flow in relationships, how do you drive innovation correctly? Because you’re stifling it. But having that open collaborative framework. I think it allows that innovation, but then it actually helps procurement become more innovative with engagement from the supply chain. Even from that, we would like to do this and kind of going from that out, this is what we want to do, but more change your request for information to a request for outcome. This is our kind of outcome we’re trying to achieve. How do we do it? I think it’s a, it’s definitely something which. As time goes on, as the profession faces more complexities with regulation, with sustainability, with balancing cost demands, how these come together, I think will continue to shift and change, to be honest. But I see procurement. An area of innovation, probably not the incubator, but very much the driver of it.

 

Sian Lloyd – 00:34:56:

 

John, it’s been fascinating to hear more about the sector you’re working in and your broad experiences. Thanks so much for sharing them with us today. We’re drawing to that section in our podcast where we like to reflect a little bit, to get some advice from our guests, for other people perhaps who are going to enter this sector, so that we can get some learning towards the end of our podcast. And I’m going to hand over to Gareth for our first question. He’s going to give you the grilling first.

 

Gareth Burch – 00:35:25:

 

John is honestly not that bad. As someone who’s led significant procurement transformations, what advice would you give procurement leaders who are facing similar pressures we’ve discussed today in their sectors?

 

John Wallace – 00:35:39:

 

The key thing for success is to build relationships with your exec teams and to try and identify what hurdles they have in relation to procurement and how you can help them avoid any challenges. Interestingly, in the private sector, when I had been employed, the challenge was how much money are you going to save us, John? Whereas in housing, the question really is how are you going to make life easier for me, John, and my team to do business? So the first thing you have to do is build that relationship with those people and show how you’re going to make life easier for them and their teams to run their aspects of the business and that’s really what the focus has been. We’ve at Clarion moved from a culture of saying, no, you’re in breach of the regulations to yes, and this is how we’re going to help you get around, not get around them, but how we’re going to make sure you’re compliant. Once you get that relationship right and the trust is built that you understand what their needs are and you have responded to them, then you do then have a really more of an open door in terms of then implementing some of the other changes that you were but it’s all it is like it like all business is all about relationships and it’s all about being pragmatic and responding to their requirements. So that would be that that would be the key bit of advice I would give.

 

Gareth Burch – 00:37:11:

 

John, that’s honestly a great answer. In regards to your career, is there any particular legacy you would want to leave behind?

 

John Wallace – 00:37:20:

 

I would like to try and ensure that the housing sector in the round fully appreciates and maximizes the value that can come from good procurement. And so a lot of private sector people have come into the sector and are moving the sector along. But there is still this this uncertainty or this, you know, why are procurement doing that? Surely you’re just there for compliance and tendering. So I’m determined to try and ensure that the people that work in procurement in housing associations are delivering the value that a private sector organisation would expect. And in addition, deliver the additional value around social value, sustainability, etc. And part of the work on the association is to try and get everybody in procurement up to a level of both business competence technically and also soft business competencies as well. So the importance of engaging, the importance of building relationships as well so there’s a long way to go. So hopefully by the time I retire, we’ll have gone further down that path. But whether we get right to the end of it, I don’t I’m not sure we will yet.

 

Sian Lloyd – 00:38:30:

 

We are talking about legacy there, but we know you’re not retiring anytime soon, John. You’ve got a lot more work to do. We know that. And thank you for it. But we have one final question now, which we ask all our guests. And that’s because, you know, we know in the Powering Procurement podcast that there are challenges in the sector like in others around recruitment, around retention. So we love to hear from our guests, you know, why you’re happy working in the sector, which you clearly are.

 

John Wallace – 00:38:59:

 

Well, there’s two aspects of this, really, is I think, why do I enjoy working in procurement? And why do I enjoy working in the housing sector? So procurement for me, is you spend a lot of your life working. And actually, procurement gives you every aspect of an organization. We work across every directorate, every specialism. We’re engaging with people across the whole business. We have to have technical skills to understand what we’re buying for people. We have to have commercial skills so that we can get value for money as well so and I’m not even sure you get that opportunity in any other role, actually, unless you’re chief exec. And of course, then you’ve got to… But actually, that’s quite rare. And if you’re… Keen and ambitious and want to learn, then procurement is an ideal opportunity. In terms of why I like housing, well, you’ve only got to read the paper every day. You’ve only got to see what’s on the television every day. And it’s so important that we provide safe homes for everybody that needs them. And in doing so, that’s wonderful to see. And so I see the benefits every day by seeing the residents that are in our properties and how safe and secure they are. All the work that we do with Clarion Futures in terms of generating social value, which is then used to hopefully develop and support our residents from where they are now to wherever they want to get to. It’s fantastic. And we work in a sector where the bottom line gets reinvested into the organisation. It doesn’t get shared with shareholders or dividends. And so all that comes into play as well. It’s a great sector to be in. It’s a challenging sector to be in, but it’s a great sector from that perspective. So procurement is a really exciting career and housing is a great place to do it. So.

 

Sian Lloyd – 00:40:57:

 

Thank you so much. Lovely to talk with you.

 

John Wallace – 00:40:59:

 

Thank you.

 

Gareth Burch – 00:41:02:

 

That wraps up this episode of Powering Procurement. We hope you enjoyed that as much as we did.

 

Sian Lloyd – 00:41:08:

 

Visit our website at atamis.co.uk or follow us on LinkedIn to continue the conversation.

 

Gareth Burch – 00:41:15:

 

Remember to subscribe on YouTube and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you choose to listen.

 

Sian Lloyd – 00:41:21:

 

Thanks for joining us and see you next time on Powering Procurement.