Collaborative book purchasing event – 25th June 2008 (Glasgow Metropolitan College)

Firstly, Karen Anderson of APUC provided a background to procurement and the benefits that collaborative agreements can offer. APUC itself arose as a result of the McClelland Report, which reviewed public procurement in Scotland. John Swinney, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth, is highly in favour of collaborative agreements and it was intimated that institutions not participating will soon have to justify their reasons for not doing so.

Following this, the benefits gained by HE libraries already involved in collaborative procurement were outlined. Although there are financial savings to be made, much was also made of other benefits. These included the ability to pressure book suppliers in to altering their own working practices in order to suit those of the partner libraries.

There was then a series of group discussion involving various aspects of a consortium based approach. A number of concerns were raised. These included:
• The impact they would have on small local book suppliers who depended on their dealings with libraries to stay in business. While this was acknowledged as a problem, it would not be enough to prevent the continuation of the scheme.
• What if college finance departments are unwilling to alter their processes or deal with new suppliers? Again, pressure from above would ensure that such a stance could not hinder any agreements.
• LMS interoperability. Although HE institutions have experienced problems, once they have been identified, it’s usually left up to the book suppliers and LMS providers to resolve any issues.
• How would large number of standing orders be moved from one supplier to another? When tenders are drawn up it is possible to ask potential new suppliers how they will aid a smooth transfer of annual purchases. Weighting can be applied to ensure that, if suppliers are to be changed, there will be real benefits in doing so. However, would an outgoing supplier be willing to help the new one with details on standing orders etc?
• Who decides the criteria for tender? Volunteers are required to become involved in a steering group to ensure fair representation. However, how do small colleges who can’t spare staff for such groups voice their concerns? It might be possible to have representation from each geographical area to ensure fair representation. A completely separate agreement for each area would be undesirable though, as it would result in different pricing and service levels across the sector.
• E-books. As purchasing E-books involve different considerations, such as platform usability, it would be necessary for a separate agreement to be arranged at some point in the future.
• Join in with HE or a new agreement for FE. As HE have already done so much work in this area it was initially felt that constructing an agreement for FE would be tantamount to ‘re-inventing the wheel’. However, due to the time constraints involved in joining the next HE agreement it was felt that a stand-alone FE agreement might actually be more beneficial.
• APUC funding. Although it currently has funding for two years it is not yet clear where funding will come from beyond this point. They assured us that it would not come from any savings made by the libraries involved in collaborative agreements. Instead, it is more likely that it will be ‘top-sliced’ from participating institutions overall funds. Also, if agreements are made they would still continue in the event that APUC disbands in the near future. So far, 23 colleges and 4 universities have become members of APUC.