Last month, supported by Construction industry sector leaders, the National Centre for Diversity launched an exciting and groundbreaking ‘Supply Chain Verification Service’ for suppliers and procurers.
Encouraged by some of the biggest names in business and developed in collaboration with them, the National Centre for Diversity set up the register to help smaller suppliers reach certain minimum standards, and by doing so to gain a commercial advantage when tendering for new business.
The aim is to support suppliers; verify their credentials in equality, diversity and inclusion; and hopefully put them in a better place to win new contracts to work with local authorities, organisations and large businesses across the UK.
Solat Chaudhry, CEO and founder of the National Centre for Diversity, said: “When the Equality Act 2010 came in it meant, rightly, that public bodies who are paid to provide services have a duty to advance equality of opportunity across all their functions and this includes commissioning and procurement.”
“The bigger companies with access to plenty of resources were quickly able to adapt and compete on a level playing field. However, smaller companies were being left behind due to lack of capacity and the specialist support they needed to do well in this space.”
“So, spurred on by this, we worked with our partners to create the Verification Service for suppliers and procurers so they could easily work on improving as a good and fair employer. This would enable larger organisations to fulfil their obligations under UK equality legislation and provide evidence of good practice – a win-win situation for everyone.”
Eiffage-Kier, Galliford-Try and Amey have been involved in the discussions, preparation and design of the service and have committed to working with and supporting the National Centre for Diversity as the Service is taken forward.
Construction giants Amey have been involved from the beginning. Nicky Atkin, Category Manager at Amey, said: “If this initiative is successful and there is wide-scale take up and acceptance of the verification service from Procurers, it could well save suppliers a lot of time, money and the stress of having to produce a different proof for different procurers.”
The NCFD Procurer Register and Supplier Register is an online service, which lists organisations who will accept a supplier’s NCFD Verified Supplier (VS) reference number as evidence and proof of their commitment to good practice in FREDIE (Fairness, Respect, Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Engagement).
It is easy to use, as the infographic above shows. Each organisation is assigned a unique VS reference number, which can be used to identify where they are at in the journey working with the NCFD. The VS number highlights an organisation’s status. The organisation then adopts the policies, procedures and training to embed good FREDIE practices, followed by a telephone interview or on-line questionnaire before the verification is complete.
The register will be continuously maintained and updated by the NCFD.
Solat Chaudhry added: “We want to spread good FREDIE practice and help embed good practice in suppliers so that they can leverage this to enhance their chances of competing for new contracts and tenders.”
“The benefits are enormous. It encourages suppliers who are micro or SMEs to improve as employers. It reduces costs and workload by combining evidence and proof of good practices. Once verified there is no doubt that our service will enhance brand and reputation and strengthen claims of being a fair and inclusive employer.
“Other benefits include better decision-making, improved teamwork, greater creativity, better customer services, improved quality of output. It makes perfectly good sense.”
At the launch, some of the top influencers spoke of the Service.
Osita Madu, Head of EDI at HS2, commented: “The launch of the verification service is about sharing and learning with each other. It is important to reflect on our Tier 2 and 3 suppliers who now have a tool which they can measure EDI against, which is key in the supplier journey; and we will encourage them to sign up to this verification standard and use FREDIE as a tool to communicate not only with their workforce but also externally.”
“It is very good for SMEs to see progression and track commitment and progression and achieve it in a three-step approach. It creates efficiency and is quick and not onerous. It is such an important message that we will encourage our Tier 1’s to send out the message to their Tier 2s and 3s to go through it.”
Paul Paddick, Head of Procurement at Eiffage-Keir, said: “As a company we have actively been supporting the NCFD verification scheme. We believe it is absolutely the right thing to cascade good practice into our supply chain, from a moral and ethical point of view and it makes good business sense. Developing skills in the diversity and inclusion arena can only be good for business and we are actively promoting this new scheme. We have a massive supply chain ourselves that has tentacles stretching down to our Tier 3, 4 and 5 suppliers and so we are going to be talking to tens of thousands of suppliers and so hopefully the word will spread across the UK.”
Elena Gonzáles, Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Project Manager at Eiffage-Kier, added: “The launch is about getting people from industry together talking about FREDIE. The key thing in making it a reality is collaboration: how are we going to break down the barriers in industry, and what is the best way of achieving this? We want to drive this through our supply chain and encourage our suppliers to consider the scheme and sign up to it, which we will drive through our contractual requirements.”
For more information and to sign up to the NCFD Supply Chain Verification Service email admin@iiduk.org or call the NCFD on 0800 288 4717
