Lorraine leads STAR Procurement which is a very successful, high performing public sector shared service that is leading collaborative change and transformation through procurement and Social Value. STAR supports four Greater Manchester Councils and now two Liverpool City Region Councils that joined STAR in 2023. Lorraine has led STAR for almost seven years and in 22/23 they supported the retention of 78.9% local spend within Greater Manchester for her four partner Councils. STAR have continued to improve the Social Value captured as added value through procurement securing 38.5% accumulatively of the collective contract value since April 2019. The National Social Value Taskforce is a ‘coalition of the willing’ of public, private and voluntary sector representatives who act as advocates and creators of this ‘Social Value Movement’. Lorraine has been part of this since its formation in 2017 as was appointed as Chair in June 2023. Lorraine received a national award ‘Best Council to do Business With’ historically which she received at No.10 Downing St. She personally contributed to the improvement of Public Contract Regulations 2015 and Lord Young’s Reforms as she attended a Select Committee in the House of Commons to respond to a Public Procurement Review. Lorraine was also highly commended in Leadership at the National Social Value Conference 2020 and STAR won an award for embedding Social Value into the procurement processes in 2021.

The Ministry of Defence are one of the biggest public procurement organisations in Europe, and the single largest customer for UK industry. Over the next decade, they are committed to spending over £190Bn on equipment and support. The MOD has a diverse range of requirements, including everything from military fighting vehicles to education services, nuclear submarines to facilities management. Its customers include our Armed Forces and national security agencies. The MOD's aim is to ensure that our customers are provided with the best capabilities to enable them to protect the UK’s security and to advance the UK’s interests, both now and in the long term.

As Head of Procurement Reform, Ben is responsible for leading the MOD’s defence and security elements of the Cabinet Office led Procurement Bill. Working closely with the Cabinet Office, Ben leads a multi-functional team, bringing together commercial, legal and change delivery expertise ensuring the provisions within the Procurement Bill meet the requirements of Defence and that these provisions are fully scrutinised via the Parliamentary Process. An equal priority for Ben focuses on preparation for implementation of the new rules. Working alongside colleagues within the MOD and CO, but also with colleagues from industry, Ben recognises the success of the new rules is dependent on sufficient training, understand and preparation ahead of the go live date. Ben is a career civil servant, working in the MOD for the past three years programme managing the development of the Defence and Security Industrial Strategy before joining Defence Commercial. Prior to the MOD Ben spent 10 years in the Ministry of Justice working in a variety of fields, including policy, strategy, operations, Private Office and estates. Ben has a proven track record of working in high-profile and pressured environments, bringing his enthusiasm and positivity to those challenges and always delivering on time.

Darren leads a team of twenty-three procurement staff responsible for all procurement activity at Durham County Council. In 2016 Darren was awarded the Cabinet Office’s first ever award for Social Value Leadership for an Organisation. He is Chair of the Local Government Association’s National Advisory Group for Local Government Procurement and is the Chair of the National Social Value Taskforce.

John Coyne has recently been appointed Director of Commercial & Procurement at Birmingham City Council, having previously served for 3 years as Director for Commercial and Procurement at the Welsh Government. He began his career in the Irish tourism sector and in 1991 became the first ever Commercial Director at Liverpool FC where he was tasked with broadening the financial, commercial and business development aspects of the club. After leaving Liverpool FC, John spent some time at Sports Wales before moving to the health sector where he has largely remained since. John was most recently the Managing Director an NHS owned Teckal Company, SWFT Clinical Services Ltd. Here he managed a turnover of approximately £50m a year and 280 staff.

Euan Slack is the Programme Director for the Central Digital Platform at the Cabinet Office, having been appointed in January 2024 after previously serving as Deputy Director for Grants and Commercial Digital Services. The Central Digital Platform (CDP) will be where all UK contracting authorities publish information relating to procurement. It is also the place where identifiers are recorded and/or issued and for suppliers to input their commonly used information. It will be a fully integrated digital platform where noticing, sign-in and registration, and supplier information will all work together to support public sector procurement.

Isabelle is the CEO of Social Value UK (SVUK), the national network for those interested in social value and social impact. It works with its members, through its Social Value Principles, to achieve a broader definition of value within accounting so that decision-making adequately prioritises equality, environmental protection and wellbeing. Through this role, she is building upon the political and public service legacy for which she was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List of 2022. As a barrister, Isabelle worked nationally and internationally as the Head of a barristers’ chambers she founded in 2012. This followed a lengthy legal career in the public, private and charitable sectors, a significant part of which comprised her work for The Civil Service.

John was appointed Director of Procurement at Clarion Housing Group in 2021, and has worked in the housing sector for over a decade, having previously been Procurement Director at Metropolitan Thames Valley, and Head of Procurement and Purchasing at Anchor Group. He began his career as a laboratory assistant before becoming a qualified Master Brewer. Having spent 10 years in brewing production, John moved onto various procurement roles in the industry prior to spending 2 years in the food industry working for one of the country’s leading chilled food producers. In 2006, he joined the NHS, being involved in the growth and development of two regional procurement organisations before joining Anchor in 2013.

Carl has a wealth of public procurement experience, having previously led the award-winning procurement team at one of Wales’ largest housing associations. Before joining Welsh Government, Carl worked for the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS), where he taught procurement and contract management best practice to public and private sector organisations across the globe. Carl also played an important role in CIPS’ work post-Grenfell, and supported the work of Working Group 11 to agree specific procurement competence levels for people involved in the construction of new higher risk residential buildings. In his current role, Carl is responsible for developing Welsh Government’s wider Procurement Reform engagement activity, working closely with stakeholders across the Welsh public sector to ensure that they are ready to maximise the opportunities arising from procurement reform.

Martin is a subject matter expert in Dun & Bradstreet’s Third Party Risk and Compliance line of business. For the last 15 years, he has worked in the information industry, helping clients to make the most of their data and analytics. At Dun & Bradstreet, Martin helps clients better understand who they are doing business with and where risk lies at a global level, accurately and efficiently. His areas of expertise include due diligence, beneficial ownership, screening, sanctions, and more.

Amy joined the Cabinet Office in 2021 as part of the International and Reform Team, before being appointed Head of Debarment and Investigations in 2023. She had previously worked for more than 10 years at the Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S), delivering and managing high profile and complex defence procurements and working with UK and international suppliers.

Christopher Hammond is the Chief Executive for UK100. UK100 is a cross-party membership organisation that supports the most ambitious councils to go further and faster on their Net Zero and Clean Air targets. Since joining in 2021, the network has doubled and launched two new ambitious programmes. The Climate Leadership Academy and Local Power in Action. In 2023, the Membership Team which he created, was shortlisted for ‘Team of the Year’ in the Edie Sustainable Leadership Awards. Previously, Christopher served as the elected Leader of Southampton City Council from 2018-2021. During his tenure as a councillor (2013-2022), he brokered an agreement that led to the country’s first commercial Shore Power facility and devised a Green City Charter subsequently signed by 75 major city organisations. In 2020, he was shortlisted for ‘Leader of the Year’ at the LGIU Councillor Awards. Born and raised in Dagenham in East London, Christopher was the first of his family to graduate from university. Afterwards, he worked as a race equality advocate and governance and risk manager for Nationwide Building Society. In 2018 he established an award-winning restaurant in Southampton. Christopher holds a degree from Bournemouth University, which named him its 2019 Alumni of the Year.

Since January 2021 Gavin has been a freelance consultant available for research, policy and advocacy work on data, information, media, digital, government and data visualization. That includes helping organisations visualise and communicate data more effectively. Prior to going freelance, Gavin spent more than seven years working on data and digital government at the Institute for Government, most recently as programme director. At the Institute, he led and developed the organisation’s flagship Whitehall Monitor project (which analyses and visualises the size, shape and performance of central government in the UK), designed data analysis and visualisation training and tools to support people across the organisation to use data more effectively, and created the Data Bites event series.

As Framework Director at Procure Partnerships Framework, Faye supports the team of regional Key Account Managers to advise public sector bodies on compliant and procurement routes to appoint their main contractor partners. Faye also works closely with Social Value and Marketing to ensure public sector bodies have substantial support from procurement to onsite delivery. Faye is also responsible for ensuring a smooth transition from contractor procurement, to contractor appointment, to starting on site by organising the likes of project launch workshops and collaborative planning workshops, and external training sessions.

With over 25 years' experience in both the public and private sectors, Alan has extensive experience of procurement. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply, and has held numerous strategic procurement roles throughout his career. He is a passionate and driven ambassador for all things procurement.

Rebecca Rees is a Partner and the Head of Public Procurement at the international law firm, Trowers & Hamlins. Rebecca is a leading national expert in public procurement law and has significant experience in advising clients in the public, private and third sectors on public procurement, subsidy control and building safety strategy issues. She advises clients on procurement strategy and structures, how to conduct flexible and compliant procurement procedures and compile objective and transparent evaluation models and guidance. With particular interests in value-led procurement, social value and building safety, Rebecca is a member of the Working Group 11 for Procurement Competency, DLUHC’s Procurement Advisory Group, and HACT’s National Social Value in Housing Taskforce. Rebecca is also a Visiting Fellow at the Centre of Construction Law at Dickson Poon School of Law at Kings College London and is currently undertaking a PhD in public procurement, focusing on price evaluation models at the University of Nottingham.

Peter has had a varied career with over 40 years working strategically and operationally in the Public Sector. Starting out as a Chartered Civil Engineer and working in various roles, always championing improvement and efficiency. Currently Head of Integrated Commissioning and Procurement at Manchester City Council since 2019 which was preceded by 7 years delivering a collaborative procurement programme for Greater Manchester and 5 years supporting a range of collaborative and transformational projects in the North East of England. As chair of the LGA’s Procurement National Advisory Group and the iNetwork Connected Procurement and Commissioning Workstream, Peter provides a link between national policy makers and the NW region’s procurement practitioners. Currently focussing on using progressive procurement to address inequalities and prioritising the needs local residents, Peter is looking forward to maximising the opportunities provided by the Procurement Act and the National Procurement Policy Statement whilst also devising ways to ensure that the Council’s suppliers match our zero carbon ambitions.

Ian Schollar is the Head of Teaching and Learning at CIPS and has had a progressive career in procurement and commercial roles spanning over 30 years in both public and private sectors. He started his career with Mallory Batteries (Duracell) in 1983, before spending 15 years working within both central and local public sector organisations. He was responsible for procuring a diverse range of categories from breathing apparatus for fire fighters to high tech radar systems for air traffic controllers. In 1998, Ian became a Senior Advisor for Crown Agents, an International Development Agency. He was project lead on numerous capacity building projects working in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and Eastern Europe and headed up the procurement and supply chain training at their Training Centre. Ian has worked at CIPS since 2005 and has a particular passion for professional development. Ian is a Fellow of CIPS and holds a Master’s Degree in Management, Learning and Leadership from Lancaster University Management School.

Laura is the Director of Partner and Social Value Services at PeoplePlus, part of the Staffline Group, bringing over 25 years of expertise in Education, Employer Engagement, Recruitment, and Social Impact. She specialises in helping businesses and partners recruit, retain, and develop individuals disadvantaged in the labour market, including those affected by Worklessness. Laura leads the Social Recruitment Advocacy Group, a network of 150+ employers, specialist partners, and individuals with lived experience, advancing Social Recruitment and Retention initiatives. Laura collaborates with major organisations such as G4S, Sodexo, AMEY, Lidl, M Group, Milestone Infrastructure, and NHS Employers to integrate social responsibility into business operations. Laura is also adept at guiding organisations to leverage government-funded recruitment, employability, and skills programs to meet their Social Value and ESG objectives and is leading on the launch of the Social Recruitment Covenant, set for 2024.

Ben is a researcher working with the Institute for Government's general election team. Before joining the Institute, Ben studied medicine at university and continues to practice as an NHS doctor, and has also published research in a number of medical journals.

Dan Ebanks is a respected and recognised leader in Social Value. Before creating the Social Value Exchange and the country’s leading Social Value brokerage platform, Match My Project, Dan had a 15 year career in management consultancy, advising clients in UK central, regional and local government. Dan recognised that the Social Value Act represented a qualitative break with previous value for money public policy and saw an opportunity to disrupt traditional procurement processes with modern digital technologies. Dan is also a Big Issue Changemaker, a mentor on Sky’s F100 Growth Fund and a Future Vision alumni. He lives in London with his wife and two children. Dan is a keen Arsenal fan, vinyl collector and runner.

25 years industry experience in HR, Early Career, Learning and Development and Talent across the Financial Services, Legal and Education sectors implementing workforce planning and people development strategy and solutions. Responsible for horizon scanning to identify how global shifts are impacting emerging and future skills and linking those to today’s increasingly nonlinear and dynamic career paths. Supports organisations including the Public sector and NHS to better understand the capability needs of today and tomorrow.

Carolyn has over 28 years of experience in bid submissions, proposals and solution architecture across the public and private sector, successfully securing contracts in excess of £150m. Carolyn started her career within the Manufacturing industry, working across Quality, Operations, Procurement and Sales, before moving organically into the training and education sector. Carolyn has worked within apprenticeships and further education for over 8 years, to provide employers with solution based bids and tenders to employers including the Cabinet Office and Civil Service departments, local government, the NHS and the commercial sector.

Sean McNabb is currently a Director in the CMA’s Competition enforcement team. His background is as a fraud investigator and he has been involved in cartel enforcement for over 20 years, having previously worked at the Office of Fair Trading.  He has worked on a number of successful criminal and civil cartel investigations involving a diverse range of industries ranging from airlines, estate agents, furniture products and various sectors of the construction industry, including leading the largest ever cartel investigation in the UK which resulted in fines totalling £63.6million being issued to 103 construction firms found to have engaged in bid rigging with competitors on building contracts, including many for the public sector. He is currently Project Director for an ongoing investigation into alleged anti-competitive activity in the construction sector.

Dun & Bradstreet, a leading global provider of business decisioning data and analytics, enables companies around the world to improve their business performance. Dun & Bradstreet’s Data Cloud fuels solutions and delivers insights that empower customers to accelerate revenue, lower cost, mitigate risk, and transform their businesses. Since 1841, companies of every size have relied on Dun & Bradstreet to help them manage risk and reveal opportunity.

Grahame joined BiP Solutions in 2003 as Production Director with responsibility for the multi-disciplined media and production department, including Content, Research and Distribution. Prior to that, he worked in various senior editorial and publishing roles for the media company EMAP plc. Grahame was appointed Deputy Chief Operating Officer of the BI Division in May 2012 and became Sales & Marketing Director in May 2016 with overall responsibility for driving revenues through private and public sector sales, marketing and events teams. In January 2017, Grahame was appointed Managing Director of the Media and Marketing Solutions division of the BiP Group. In this role he assumed overall responsibility for two of BiP Group’s recent acquisitions – Pro Mark Media and Ingenium – as well as BiP Solutions’ events and training portfolio. Following a restructure of BiP Group in April 2018, Grahame was appointed Sales and Marketing Director for the Business Intelligence and Public Sector business units, before subsequently being appointed Director of Public Policy, Research and Communications in 2023.

Paul has worked with BIP Solutions since 2009, and has been a consultant trainer specialising in Procurement since 1998. Previously he had a number of roles at chemical company ICI, latterly in procurement of global engineering contracts. He is the co-author with Stuart Emmett of Excellence in Public Sector Procurement, and frequently lectures in the Middle and far East as well as working in the UK. He has worked with everyone from one man bands to Blue chip multinationals, and extensively with UK public sector organisations.

The GCF was formed in 2015 and incorporates around 4,000 people working in commercial roles, predominantly within central government departments and some Arm’s-Length Bodies. The commercial teams in departments are supported by a central team based in the Cabinet Office which provides cross-cutting functional coordination support, as well as specialist services and expert advice on complex transactions, key suppliers and market stewardship. This helps to ensure that the Government can effectively leverage its significant scale, benefit from greater efficiency and drive improved value for money from its suppliers and the wider supply chain.

Crown Commercial Service are the biggest public procurement organisation in the UK. We use our commercial expertise to help buyers in central government and across the public and third sectors to purchase everything from locum doctors and laptops to police cars and electricity. The collective purchasing power of our customers, plus our procurement knowledge, means we can get the best commercial deals in the interests of taxpayers. CCS helps thousands of public and third sector buyers in the UK with billions of pounds of spending each year. We have a wide range of commercial agreements to help you buy what you need, when you need, saving you time and money. CCS commercial agreements use competition among suppliers to increase quality and value. In 2018/19 we helped 18,000 buyers save £945m of public money using CCS commercial agreements.