Procurement Act 2023: A Guide and Show & Tell to a Successful Define Stage

Join our superuser, Mark Pearson From CPC, alongside James Aldred (Procurement Manager at St Helens College (Merseyside)) for an essential session on navigating the define stage of your procurement journey. We will cover key topics including:

- Effective stakeholder engagement, addressing conflicts of interest, and gathering input for tender documents
- Lessons learned from previous re-procurements and resolving any outstanding issues with the outgoing contract
- Strategies for early market engagement
- Understanding routes to market, including framework call-offs, below-threshold and above-threshold processes, and direct awards
- Crafting clear and comprehensive specifications
- Navigating Contract Terms & Conditions
- Insights on TUPE and important internal/supplier fact-finding

During the session we will also debunk common myths that can create apprehension around this stage of procurement.

Don’t miss this opportunity to enhance your understanding of the define stage and improve your procurement practices!

Our Speakers

Mark Pearson

Mark is a chartered procurement professional and Procurement Act 2023 ‘Advanced Practitioner’ with 35 years’ private and public sector procurement and contract management experience.

His career includes twenty years in private practice within the construction industry as a chartered quantity surveyor and latterly a dispute resolution practitioner. A move to the public sector at the beginning of 2010 led to requalification in public procurement law and practice, studying under Professor Sue Arrowsmith at the University of Nottingham, before achieving full MCIPS in 2018. Initially working in local government procurement services, culminating in a Procurement Business Improvement managerial position, Mark joined Crescent Purchasing Consortium in 2019. He returned to the coalface of delivering procurement services to clients before promotion into a newly created Learning & Development Lead role at the beginning of 2024.

Mark’s remit is to develop procurement best practice within CPC and to support CPC’s wider membership with the knowledge and tools needed to instil this ethos across the education sector.

James Aldred

James has spent his career split between public and private sector and has predominantly worked in Procurement and Contract Management.  James completed his CIPS qualification in 1996 and was highly commended in the 2020 GO Procurement Innovation of the year award – Taking the Procurement function forward for his Innovation Partnership in pain management when working for the NHS.  James has worked across numerous Councils, Research Councils and the NHS, and has recently stepped into the work of Education, taking on a new role as Procurement Manager at St Helen College on Merseyside.