- Big Size
- Procurement Intelligence
NHS Black Country Alliance - Procurement Intelligence
Client Overview
The NHS Black Country Alliance (BCA) is a procurement collaborative between Sandwell & West Birmingham NHS Trust and The Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust, with combined turnover in excess of £1bn and influenceable non-pay spend of over £150m a year. As anchor institutions, the trusts have committed to using that spending power to support local, SME and diverse suppliers across the Black Country.
This case study is relevant for:
NHS procurement collaboratives and trusts managing large supplier networks, particularly those responsible for anchor-institution reporting, local-economy and supplier diversity measurement, and audit-ready supplier onboarding under NHS standing financial instructions.
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The Challenge
The BCA was already using the Atamis supplier portal and reporting against anchor institution commitments. What it lacked was a way to answer two questions from a single source: where its money was actually going, and whether each supplier was safe to set up, pay and trust with NHS business.
UK public-sector and NHS procurement requires robust reporting on:
- Where spend is landing locally, by postcode and across the Black Country.
- Participation of Micro, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (MSMEs).
- Spend reaching diverse-owned businesses and the most deprived areas of the UK.
Three barriers stood in the way: Scale and complexity. Across two acute trusts and a large supplier base, manual assessment of where money landed and who suppliers were was not operationally viable. Incomplete supplier data. Procurement records did not consistently capture ownership, company size, VAT status or recognised diversity indicators, and supplier risk was unclear. Slow, resource-heavy reporting. Questions were answered the slow way, cross-checking Companies House, chasing VAT numbers and asking departments for proof.
“As anchor institutions, our trusts have a responsibility to put our spend to work in the Black Country. But that responsibility means more when you can show what it’s delivering. We needed a way to see, quarter on quarter, where our money is landing locally, and at the same time give our team the confidence that every supplier we set up is one we should be doing business with. DataGardener has given us both, in one place.”
—Paul Mellor, Deputy Director of Procurement, NHS Black Country Alliance
The Solution
The BCA commissioned DataGardener to support two workstreams within the procurement function, each owned by a different part of the team but drawing on the same underlying intelligence.
Using automated data enrichment and classification, DataGardener enabled the team to:
- Analyse purchase-order data each quarter to show the share of spend reaching businesses in Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton.
- Classify suppliers by size, with VAT-registered status confirmed, and surface spend reaching under-represented groups and the most deprived areas.
- Pull a complete supplier profile at onboarding, including financial risk rating, VAT status, registered and trading addresses, modern slavery indicators and supplier history, in a single one-stop check.
- Escalate high-risk suppliers automatically for finance approval, saving a time-stamped report as evidence of the check.
The information from DataGardener and Companies House is now compiled automatically and sent to finance when a new supplier comes in. It has become the default first step, not an extra one.
“It brings a formality to it. The answer is there if you look for it, it is not guesswork anymore. We’ve been able to onboard niche local suppliers we previously couldn’t verify, and we’ve been able to turn away the ones that wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny. Both of those things matter when you’re spending public money.”
—Senior member of the BCA procurement team
The Results
A Defensible View of the Supplier Network The analysis produced a clear and realistic picture of where BCA money goes and who its suppliers are:
- Quarterly local-spend analysis across Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton, going beyond the headline Anchor Institutions report.
- SME and micro-business spend identified, with VAT-registered status confirmed.
- Spend reaching under-represented groups and the most deprived areas surfaced from a single source.
- Trend data quarter on quarter, allowing the team to demonstrate movement against anchor commitments.
Measurable Efficiency Gains
- Supplier checks consolidated into a single one-stop profile, replacing manual cross-checking of Companies House and VAT records.
- A repeatable quarterly reporting pipeline, with the team working towards purchase-order data flowing in automatically.
- Niche local suppliers onboarded that the team previously could not verify, and unsuitable suppliers turned away with evidence.
Stronger Governance and Reporting Confidence
- Every supplier added accompanied by a downloaded, time-stamped DataGardener report, defensible under NHS standing financial instructions.
- Risk indicators surfaced at the start of onboarding rather than after a relationship is formalised.
- Licence base extended so individual users across procurement operations have their own access.
Client Feedback
“Anchor institution status only means something if you can show what it’s delivering in the community. DataGardener has helped us move from a position where we believed we were supporting local businesses to one where we can demonstrate it, supplier by supplier, quarter by quarter. That’s the foundation everything else gets built on.”
— Paul Mellor, Deputy Director of Procurement, NHS Black Country Alliance
Takeaway
As anchor institutions, the BCA’s trusts have a responsibility to put their spend to work in the Black Country, and that responsibility means more when they can show what it is delivering. By applying structured supplier intelligence, the BCA gained a clear, defensible view of local and diverse spend, reduced reporting effort, and strengthened confidence that every supplier it sets up is one it should be doing business with, all from a single source.
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