The Welsh Conservative Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Energy and Rural Affairs – Janet Finch-Saunders MS – has today (27 November) spoken of her concern at the revelation that the Welsh Government is failing to track product origin in their Welsh Public Sector procurement recording tool.
In reply to Janet’s recent Written Question on this issue, the Minister for Finance and Trefnydd wrote:
“The spend analysis tool used for reporting Welsh Public Sector procurement spend does not record product origin location and utilises address information from invoices. The data that feeds into this tool, from finance reporting systems from across the Welsh Public Sector, also does not hold this information. Product origin can be complex and individual invoices can relate to multiple products from a variety of sources.”
The Shadow Minister believes that the lack of rigorous record keeping on this issue is exacerbating concerns. The public sector is a significant contributor to the food and drink spend in Wales, estimated at a £78 million spend for the 2015/16 financial year. But farming sector officials in Wales have consistently warned that large processors have become powerful price setters in agri-food chains, often to their detriment.
Commenting, Janet said:
“I am greatly concerned by the revelations that the Welsh Government’s spend analysis tool, which is used to track Welsh Public Sector procurement spend, does not currently record product origin location. This means that locating an established number of how many Welsh producers benefit from the administration’s procurement spend has become near impossible.
“Personally, I do not believe that it would take too much effort to establish product origin from those sellers used. Origin is becoming an increasingly important factor in the sale of food and drink produce, with the public wanting greater reassurance that the spend is benefitting Wales.
“As I have said repeatedly, new procurement measures would create greater opportunities for Welsh producers, circulating public money where it is invested and renewing our support of hyper-local Welsh food and drink businesses. With an increased carbon footprint, buying big and importing from afar should be a cause for concern.
“To not give prudence to the concerns of Welsh farming sector officials, who have consistently warned that large processors have become powerful price setters in agri-food chains, would be a mistake. I urge the Welsh Government to review their tracking tool to see if this information can be collected from sellers so that greater transparency is provided to the people of Wales.”
ENDS
Notes to Editors:
- Janet Finch-Saunders (Aberconwy): What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that the data for annual public procurement expenditure that goes to Wales-based suppliers is based on an accurate classification of a product origin rather than postcode data from invoices? (WQ81543)
- Rebecca Evans: The spend analysis tool used for reporting Welsh Public Sector procurement spend does not record product origin location and utilises address information from invoices. The data that feeds into this tool, from finance reporting systems from across the Welsh Public Sector, also does not hold this information. Product origin can be complex and individual invoices can relate to multiple products from a variety of sources. The Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) has been appointed to work across five cluster groups of Public Service Boards (PSBs) to develop approaches to increase the proportion of procurement won by indigenous businesses. Through this work, we are undertaking a specific piece of work to identify how we can increase the range of local produce in our public sector food supply chains. We will use the lessons learned from this work to develop a pipeline of sectors where there is scope to source more products which originate from Wales. Through the Foundational Economy Challenge Fund, we have supported the trial of a technology platform which enables public bodies to engage local businesses in developing solutions to public service delivery challenges.
