Learning and improving through international development work is certainly not a one way street. Throughout its years of collaboration with partners in South Africa, Leeds City Council has benefited from many ideas and suggestions for improvements to its own services, whilst sharing good practice with partner authorities.

Leeds is currently working with the city of Durban (eThekwini Municipality) and the town of Middelburg (Steve Tshwete Local Municipality) under the CLGF Good Practice Scheme to look at best practice and innovative methods for public sector procurement and business support. Recent activity within this project has focused on the relationships between the two municipal services where Leeds has found itself adopting ideas piloted in South Africa to enhance the joint service offered.

Following on from a successful workshop held in Middelburg examining corporate priorities for supply chain management, Leeds hosted a free seminar session for over 80 local businesses, to encourage dialogue and engage with the entire construction sector supply chain, an industry under significant pressure in the current economic climate. The session looked at the procurement priorities of large companies and how small local businesses can achieve greater advantage through key insights into these priorities. Keynote speaker at the event was Steve Fuller, Head of Construction and Store Architecture for Marks and Spencer. The session was deemed such a success that a similar event is being planned for the autumn providing the opportunity for local businesses to hear from other large companies.

Leeds is also currently exploring an idea piloted in Durban to create a referral system between procurement and business support services when supported SME’s are having performance difficulties.

Malcolm Foster, Deputy Chief Procurement Officer from Leeds City Council said:
‘Taking the opportunity to reflect and analyse our own practices and behaviour when explaining things to our South African partners has certainly been productive and is  something that we would not ordinarily take the time out to do. We are now looking at implementing ideas that both municipalities have suggested to us as well as continuing to share our best practice with them. It is a real three-way partnership.’