Online | DATES: Wednesday mornings 5th, 12th, 19th & 26th May 2021

Stop wasting precious time and business resources pursuing the wrong public sector opportunities. Learn new skills to spot the right commercial opportunities and process risks. Over these four sessions with government business experts, you will be able to make better decisions and improve the prospects of your business supplying the UK’s public sector.

Course Content: No matter how big or small the contract, the public sector still must abide by certain rules, regulations and governance to manage public money and provide value to taxpayers. Over the past year, we have all witnessed a staggering amount of public funds spent to support the UK’s effort to get control of the COVID-19 pandemic. While this spending has been much needed, the long-term effect of the pandemic on every sector of society will be playing out for years to come. One thing is certainly for sure, much work needs to be done to get the UK and rest of the world moving towards sustainable recovery.UK public procurement is under review by the UK Government for redrafting the applicable legislation. In the meantime, we work in accordance with the rules mirroring the Public Contracts and Concession Regulations from 2015. This course provides UK SMEs with fast-track insights on how to be part of the UK public sector market, focused on the four phases of winning work:Market engagement Selecting the best contract opportunityWinning tendersEvaluations and contract awards

Knowing the cost of doing business, tips for finding strategic business partners, engaging with the public bodies themselves, understanding authority obligations to suppliers, the value of knowing the terms you are signing up to, the social value challenge and speaking up (legitimate legal challenge).

Guest speakers:

Kyle Jameson

Kyle is the Managing Director and Lead Bid Writer at TenderHelp Ltd. Kyle founded TenderHelp in 2018 in response to a lack of affordable tender writing services in the market. One of the key drivers for the establishment of the company was the imbalance and unfairness in public sector tendering; frequently favouring larger, more established organisations, even though other businesses, including SMEs and those with less experience of the tendering process, could offer better quality and value. In the time since, Kyle and his team of bid writers have helped hundreds of companies (many SMEs) to win over £1bn worth of contracts, with a current success rate of 76%. Prior to this, Kyle worked in a variety of procurement, buying and contract management roles across a range of public sector organisations for almost 10 years, including County, Borough, District and City Councils. This experience of writing thousands of tenders, evaluating as many tender submissions and ultimately awarding the contracts, gives Kyle a great insight into what buyers are looking for and hoping to receive in your submission. In his spare time, Kyle is avidly into sport and travel (some would say too much!). And despite spending almost two years in South America, he wishes he could salsa dance like Sandy!

Sandy Boxall

Sandy has worked in and around government and technology for nearly 20 years, selling everything from Air Traffic Control training to cyber security products and data science solutions. Sandy has two roles. At BAE Systems he is responsible for Digital Transformation into the Defence Market, having previously served as Sales Director for Defence and managing a range of key accounts across government. He is also the founder and managing director of Contract Finder Pro (CFP), the UK and Ireland tender advisory and research service. Sandy started CFP after identifying a gap in the market for quick, thorough and effective information services for government contracts. Through its bespoke use of big data, CFP has now been trading for nearly three years and has helped businesses up and down the UK find new tender opportunities. In his spare time, Sandy enjoys yoga and is a keen salsa dancer. He also likes to cook, enjoys the countryside and has a keen interest in current affairs and history.

Sophie Newbould

Sophie has worked on major infrastructure projects for the UK Government, the wider public sector and commercial businesses for over 20 years. Sophie has worked across the range of legal practices, from high street to top US firm Hogan Lovells and PWC. Sophie is a serial entrepreneur having set up a childcare company on maternity leave, a software company to support the most complex contracts and projects, a solutions company for legal and sustainability processes, as well as her own regulated legal practice, Newboulds Solicitors. Newboulds is currently in its fifth year of trading, supporting fast growth technology companies to succeed in the UK and rest of the world.Sophie has a formidable business network that she uses to collaborate with, keep up to date on business dealings, make introductions for partners and generally leans on for support and growth opportunities. As cofounder of the Strategic Growth Group, Sophie is responsible for finding new members and growing the network through arranging quality events and providing quality training.In her spare time, Sophie enjoys watching her two sons play sport, walking their dog Barney and chilling with husband Rob.