North Wales Procurement Partnership - contracts have started

I looked on the sell2wales web site , following an alert I received and found that a Learning contract had been let to a number of organisations.

I wonder how many third sector organisations will be adversely affected by this new contract as apart from one I could not see a successful third sector listed. That of course may be due to the fact that no other tenders were submitted by third sector bodies. If that is so, why? Is it because the contracts are North Wales wide rather than County based and that in itself could inhibit some of the local organisations whose remit will be County specific. When I get chance I must talk to Arwel Staples ,Procurement Manager at Denbighshire County Council .

Following concerns regarding this Partnership from a number of third sector organisations I have been attempting to raise the issue with WAG as well as locally and I am afraid without any success as it is quite clear that the Procurement partnership is very focused on reducing costs which of course it can do so on a North Wales wide basis and reduced costs will be welcomed by every North Wales County Council as well as WAG. The effect those new contracts will have on local organisations and local services is anyone's guess but one thing is for sure if these new contracts replace old County wide contracts then there will be pain for the previous suppliers and that pain could result in third sector groups closing down. So we could start witnessing savings on the one hand and on the other increased costs through increased unemployment arising from third sector organisations closing. Its very much watch this space.