It may have been written five years ago, but the recommendations from the McClelland Report, which inspired Scotland Public Procurement to new levels of efficiency and performance, are as poignant today as they were then. These recommendations include:

• The procurement leadership role should extend to those activities associated with functional excellence including staff communications, education and training, staff development, career paths, job gradings, salary scales and where appropriate workload balancing.
  Procurement leadership is more than negotiations and contracts. Good procurement is also about good people.
• A public sector-wide Procurement Policy Handbook should be established offering a standard and well-documented approach to be utilized across all of the public sector.
  
  It must also cover ethics as well as procedures.
• Each organization within the Public Sector should review its procurement organization to establish the adequacy or otherwise of the resources including skill levels dedicated to the procurement activity.
  
  The team must be appropriately skilled.
• Work should be undertaken to establish how a complete, cross-public sector career path or ladder can be established which will facilitate career management and employee development and retention.
  Talent wants a career path.
• Every public-sector organization should have a formal programme of procurement internal efficiency measurement and management.
  Improvement requires a baseline.
• Absolute information and performance data should be exchanged and shared across the public sector in a formally co-ordinated procurement benchmarking programme.
  A little data goes a long way. Let the teams challenge each other for better performance based on the metrics.