Each year we spend approximately £1.4 billion with over 5,000 local, national and international suppliers. The majority of this spend is managed through long-term competitively-let contracts and framework agreements.
Our supply chain management supports our vision of being a world class operator of utility infrastructure. Developing relationships with our key partners and suppliers, based on common values and objectives, is critical to achieving this goal.
Our approach to supply chain activity is based on category management, which takes a long-term view of our demand, our specifications and the supplier market. Our third party spend is consolidated into a number of categories which reflect similar commercial considerations and supply markets. Each category has a dedicated supply chain manager.
We regularly prioritise our efforts to concentrate where we can make most positive impact. In the last year we’ve made great progress in improving the sustainability of our supply chain. All our buyers have received training on this and have been prioritising which suppliers and spend categories to deal with first. Targets have been agreed for the medium term across 12 sustainability areas and these are linked to departmental and company targets.
One key focus for us, particularly during these difficult economic times, is to ensure we pay our suppliers on time to agreed terms. Our performance has been steadily increasing over the last few years and last year’s performance was 77%.
We have a document entitled 'Our approach to doing business' which describes how we treat suppliers and business associates.
Our supply chain website details what we buy, how we select suppliers, how to win new business and get paid on time, as well as useful information and support links.