Northamptonshire Area Procurement Service (NAPS) is a shared procurement team established in November 2008 between six borough and district councils and hosted by Northampton Borough Council.

The economic downturn is impacting employment, communities and businesses up and down the country. Local authorities are addressing their responsibility to respond to the challenges the recession brings in different ways.

All local authorities are seeking to deliver improvements in business practices, customer satisfaction, and staff morale against a backdrop of reduced financial resources and increasing customer demands. Nottingham City Council is carrying out a three-year trial of Systems Thinking to see whether this approach delivers such improvement.

Transport teams from Nottinghamshire Councils have been working in partnership since 2005 to generate savings and gain value for money in their procurement of new vehicles and training, devising a ‘single tender process'. Thus far, nine authorities have together made savings of over £1.75 million. Building on the initial procurement strategy for Refuse Collection Vehicles, the consortium has now extended this single tender process to panel vans, training and tyre maintenance.