The Maribor Workshop

Representatives of our partner regions met at a workshop in Maribor (Slovenia) in June 2005 in order to share knowledge and experience of:

• how procurement works in the health sector in their regions,
• the values that shape procurement practice,
• discussion of opportunities and barriers to local procurement,
• examples of good practice in developing local procurement.

In general, most partners agreed that the traditional notions of Cost and Quality remain the basic values of the procurement process. However, there has been an evolution over the last decade from purchasing the cheapest to looking for the best value for money.

In addition, other non-monetary values such as environmental protection, innovation, local procurement, workplace health & safety may be considered in procurement decisions. However, there can be tension in procurement decision-making between what are seen as hard (monetary, risk management) values and soft (environmental, social, moral) values.

As a result of the exchange of knowledge at this workshop, a working paper on procurement and the health sector was prepared. This report, which gives more details about the scale of procurement in partner regions and examples of good practice, will shortly be available as a final report.

The workshop also included a masterclass by Justin Sacks (new economics foundation). Justin introduced participants to LM3, a tool for measuring local money flows in order to inform purchasing decisions.