SME Procurement Hub
London’s largest organisations want to help smaller and diverse-owned businesses to work with us.
Formed to help tackle London’s inequality and green recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic, the London Anchor Institutions’ Network (LAIN) is a partnership between the public sector, education, cultural, faith-based and private industry organisations.
Members of the network, including NHS London, Greater London Authority, Metropolitan Police Service, Transport for London and the University of London, have an ambition to purchase more goods and services from London’s smaller and diverse-owned businesses, either directly or through our vast supply chains.
We know that public procurement processes can be confusing or difficult to engage with – especially if this is new to your business. We’ve pulled together some essential tips and resources to help you to feel more confident in doing business with organisations like us.
Finding contract opportunities
You can find more information about our contract opportunities and how to do business with the London Anchors by visiting the websites below:
- Contract opportunities with the NHS
- Contract opportunities (over £100k) with Transport for London, the Greater London Authority and Old Oak & Park Royal Development Corporation
- Contract opportunities with the Metropolitan Police
- Contract opportunities with London Fire Brigade
- Becoming a supplier to the University of London
All public authority contracts are published on the government’s public tender portals, including:
Please note that you will need to register as a supplier in order to tender. New contracts are continually added, so do check back regularly. Tip: Use the ‘Advanced Search’ option to identify contracts particularly suitable for SMEs or VSCEs.
Reserved contracts
As part of our commitment to supporting London’s smaller and diverse-owned businesses, we are looking to reserve contracts under the relevant UK public sector threshold (typically, £213,477 inclusive of VAT for service contracts) specifically for London-based and or/micro, small and medium-sized businesses and/or those from the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise sector.*
This means that some lower-value contracts can be reserved for suppliers like yours in a specific geographic region (in this case London) following a competitive bidding process. From catering and cleaning, through to social media or picture-framing, you might be surprised at the range of reserved contracts on offer.
You can find these contracts as described above.
Tip: search for “Reserved Contract” within the opportunity title or description.
*Definitions:
Micro business: <10 employees and turnover <£1.76m per year
Small business: <50 employees and turnover <£8.8m per year
Small and Medium Enterprise: <250 employees and turnover <£45m
VCSE: (voluntary, community and social enterprise) describes any organisation that works with social purpose and that generates revenue through trading and reinvests any surplus back into the business or the community it serves.
Support & Events
The London Anchor Institutions’ Network is hosting a market engagement event on Thursday 29 June 2023 for small businesses interested in doing business with us. The event will showcase a variety of live reserved contract opportunities as well as provide topical workshops and time for networking.
Find out more about the event and register here.
Watch this recording from our September 2022 webinar explaining how to find and access tender opportunities with members of the LAIN network, including the NHS, Greater London Authority, London Fire Brigade, Metropolitan Police Service and Transport for London.
You can view the presentation slides from the webinar here.
Guidance
- The Social Value Portal: Social Value Easy Guide for SMEs/VCSEs
- Doing Business With Government: Guide for SMEs
Other resources and relevant organisations:
A pilot project to support small and medium enterprises and local organisations to access public contracts procured in the NHS. Organisations registering through the portal can access free training and have the ability to develop a personalised plan to support their growth journey.
A new fully-funded business support programme designed to give South London SMEs the knowledge and skills to develop their supply chain management, networks, and strategies.
The SME Climate Hub is a non-profit global initiative that empowers small to medium sized companies to take climate action and build resilient businesses for the future. The SME Climate Hub helps small businesses deliver on their climate goals. SMEs that have joined the Hub can access a new area of the platform behind a personalized login. Their individualized section offers the latest, most robust tools library, specifically designed for SMEs Small and medium sized businesses committed to the SME Climate Hub can access an increasing number of tools and resources to begin their climate action journey and move towards net zero.
ReLondon is a partnership of the Mayor of London and the London boroughs to improve waste and resource management and transform the city into a leading low carbon circular economy. Our mission is to make London a global leader in sustainable ways to live, work and prosper by revolutionising our relationship with stuff and helping London waste less and reuse, repair, share and recycle more. Access to free, funded and paid-for resources and support for boroughs, businesses and policy makers.
Supply Change has teamed up with Orbit Group to develop a first-of-its-kind purchasing platform for Voluntary, Charitable and Social Enterprises (VCSEs). The open-access platform allows organisations to access contract opportunities that deliver social impact.
