When Taavi Kotka, former chief innovation officer of Estonia, was asked about how he and his colleagues managed to build one of the world’s most advanced digital governments for £100m he quipped: “If you don’t use Accenture or McKinsey, you’d be amazed at what you can get done.”

Apologies to any management consultants reading this (for my part I think you’re unfairly maligned, as businesses often benefit from outside perspectives), but the point that a lot of taxpayer money is wasted by the Government is incontrovertible, as any reader of The Register will know.

Waste isn’t just about overspending though. By shutting out entrepreneurs from procurement we’re also wasting an opportunity to innovate.

This is a topic that I’ve wanted to tackle for a while. Time and again, entrepreneurs have described how the public procurement processes are often difficult and bureaucratic. Fortunately, it’s also a policy area that innovation expert Dr Chris Haley is passionate about fixing. He teamed up with us to write a response to the Government’s Green Paper, and now has published a report with us on it.

Procurement and Innovation reveals the key barriers that early-stage innovative businesses face when they go through existing public procurement processes. It argues that the recently proposed reforms in the Transforming Public Procurement Green Paper don’t go far enough and, in some cases, risked creating new barriers. And it argues how adopting best practices in procurement could deliver better-quality public services at a reduced cost to taxpayers.

Culture also matters. Many public bodies are much more risk-averse than private sector organisations, yet risk is inherent to innovation. And procurement managers need better training. In our experience, many are open to innovative solutions, but may not be aware of the state of the art.

Then there’s the issue of social value compliance requirements, which have become excessive. For example, job creation, while a noble aim for government as a whole, should not be the concern of procurement policy – it’s a direct disincentive to innovation.

We also want more pre-commercial procurement (PCP). In case you haven’t heard of it, PCP is the process of challenging industry to develop innovative solutions to a problem. The Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) scheme is an example, and typically involves an initial competition with grants of £50,000 to £100,000. After that first phase, some ideas may be taken into the second phase, where companies are awarded grants of £250,000 to £1 million to develop a prototype.

There’s a lot more we want to see: more pre-procurement consortium-building, which helps startups collaborate in developing a more complete solution; more feedback to startups and SMEs and the publication of previously successful bids, better advertising and use of brokering platforms; the opening up of more UK public procurement data; actively identifying innovations with cross-public body applications; broadening ‘meet-the-buyer’ events; a move towards cheaper off-the-shelf solutions from start-ups, as opposed to requiring expensive bespoke solutions large companies provide; as well as the use of more innovative funding models like challenge prizes, advanced market commitments and subscription payment models.

The report already has traction with Jacob Rees-Mogg, the minister for Government Efficiency and Brexit Opportunities, who says: "The Entrepreneurs Network has produced a typically astute briefing on the opportunities of procurement reform. I want to ensure our reforms are as ambitious as possible, achieve value for money for taxpayers by reducing bureaucracy for businesses, and make it easier to procure new technologies; the public sector must not be frightened of start-ups and innovation.”

Given the Rees-Mogg endorsement, it may not surprise you that it was covered in The Express under the headline: Brexit freedoms to see £300bn of public cash spread across Britain in spending revolution. While it is true that some reforms are only possible outside the European Union, many are not. Those of a less Brexity disposition may prefer our Research Director’s Twitter thread.

This is only the beginning though. We’re busy working on a report with Enterprise Nation that will look at procurement from a small business perspective and the wider challenges for business owners interacting with government. This will be a tough nut to crack, but it’s a very tasty proposition.

Routes Two
While Brexit may have eased immigration concerns, it hasn’t actually reduced it. In fact, based on recent Home Office data, it is being reported that the number of visas handed to workers, students, family relatives and other foreign nationals rose by 35% to 994,951 in the year to March, up from a pre-pandemic high of 739,936.

As Jonathan Portes argues and the ONS admits, there’s huge uncertainty about these statistics, which are based on experimental analysis of administrative data. But the fact remains, despite the truly madcap Rwanda scheme, that this Government isn’t wholly anti-immigrant.

This is particularly true for entrepreneurial individuals, which is why they have introduced the Scaleup and High Potential visas. I have my doubts about some aspects of both them, but all visa routes are being updated – sometimes too often, leaving entrepreneurs unsure which to use.

That’s why we have a roundtable on Tuesday on these visas and wider visa policies. Join us to better understand the scheme, but also to help inform us on our future lobbying efforts to make the schemes better for you.

We will be joined by Irene Graham OBE, CEO of the Scaleup Institute, and experts from Kingsley Napley. Just drop our events team an email to request a place.