Tail Spend Solution 2.0
Summary:
Provides public sector organisations with products and services classified as tail spend. These are products that are often low complexity and ad-hoc purchases which organisations usually buy to meet a specific, short-term or long-term need.
Description:
Low complexity and ad-hoc purchases are often not visible until they appear in an organisation’s end-of-year accounts and can cause significant budget pressures if not controlled. These purchases are usually made by members of staff outside of an organisation’s more formal procurement practices.
Tail spend can take a lot of different forms. It contains spending that presents risks and inefficiencies to government buyers, including:
- low price, high frequency: these are items that have low individual value, but over time, are a significant amount of spend
- low price, low frequency: items at the far end of the tail of spending
- misclassified spending: items that are individually purchased and should be consolidated into existing supply contracts and competition systems
- fragmented spending: items that are repeatedly purchased by various parts of the organisation that could be consolidated
- maverick spending: spending that falls outside of the organisation’s procurement guidelines
- unaddressed spending: items that have not been addressed by procurement in a reasonable period (generally considered to be two to three years)
- unusual spending: high-value items that are new procurements or are procured only once, or so rarely that the organisation’s procurement staff has no expertise in the area
Benefits:
Tail spend management can help make your organisation more efficient and improve social value. Benefits include:
- free: there will be no charge to buyers for accessing this agreement
- fast and convenient: we intend to provide the public sector with a buying platform to give a streamlined route for buyers to access a broad range of products and services
- social value focus: make ethical purchasing decisions based on social value criteria such as vendor locations, diversity status and sustainable products,we will aim to meet Government targets on SME spending
- efficiency savings: this solution will aim to pull multi-category product searches together in one place helping reduce the time your organisation spends shopping for multiple quotes, leaving you with more time to focus on other priorities
- reporting and invoicing: better visibility of spend
- compliance with the Procurement Policy Note 06/21: ‘Taking account of Carbon Reduction Plans in the procurement of major government contracts’
Product types:
Product types are to be determined following customer and market engagement.
Customer engagement
Customer engagement has commenced, please email the tail spend solution team using tailmanagement@
Please email tailmanagement@
Supplier engagement
We will be holding a briefing session for interested parties on 9 July 2024. The session will cover the broad objectives of any subsequent procurement exercise and its potential scope. Following the briefing session, there will be an opportunity to engage with the team to seek further clarification.
To participate in the briefing session please email the team using tailmanagement@
- organisation name
- contact name
- job title of contact (including responsibility within your organisation)
- contact phone number
- contact email
- link to your organisation’s website
*The first draft of our specification is available for review. Please note that the draft is a working document being shared for information purposes only, and we expect to make iterative updates as we refine the specification based on both continued customer and market feedback. To provide feedback please email the tail spend team using tailmanagement@
** We have documented required compliance, accreditation’s and insurances. Please note that the requirements are subject to change as we develop the agreement. The final bid pack will confirm our requirements.
Important links
| Prior Information Notice (PIN) | Read PIN |
| Contract Notice in Find a Tender (FTS) | Read Contract Notice |
| Tender documents | Read draft specification* |
Timeline
| Activity | Estimated dates |
| Pre-market engagement | July 2024 to April 2025 |
| Drafting of procurement documentation | Until April 2025 |
| Publication of find a tender (FTS) notice | April 2025 |
| Framework Award | October 2025 |