The Local Council Roads Innovation Group, LCRIG, has launched an Innovation Procurement System in partnership with Crown Commercial Service (CCS) with the aim of “increasing the pace of change and giving greater control to LCRIG members to adopt innovation at a lower cost”. 

The LCRIG IPS is designed to remove the hurdles in accessing innovation in the sector by creating a dynamic route for LCRIG Members to access the market and engage with innovators nationally. LCRIG says the partnership will achieve the following benefits: 

• Easy access to proven innovation to expedite adoption thus contributing to improved whole lifecycle asset cost and leveraging impactful, cutting-edge technology. 
• Dynamic access to innovation in various categories which are not included in typical sector asset management, technology and highway services frameworks. 

LCRIG Chief Executive Martin Duffy said: ”The LCRIG IPS is about the market scale and the adoption of proven, market-ready innovations which will improve the cost of managing our assets. We have worked closely with Crown Commercial Service over the last few months to ensure that the IPS is fit for purpose and covers items that our members would like to access.” 

The LCRIG-CCS partnership is intended to be dynamic and long-term allowing LCRIG to support members with the increasing pace of sector innovation. The IPS, by design, will change over time creating new categories to support members’ needs. All categories will not be launched at the same time as LCRIG is using an agile approach to learn and improve the IPS thus the partnership was launched with a trial of the Road Surface Innovation Category.  

Mr Duffy added: ”It is these attributes that make the IPS stand out over a traditional framework, which once let, locks other potential providers out of that market for a four-year term. We have obtained support from the sector to progress this initiative and we will look to develop it with Shropshire Council and others.” 

Sandra Sewell, Head of Account Management at Crown Commercial Service (CCS), has worked with LCRIG to bring about this innovative partnership covering the whole of the local authority highways sector.  

She said: “‘Crown Commercial Service partnering with LCRIG shows that we are committed to supporting innovation across the highways sector. By ensuring we have a dynamic, industry-aligned procurement route, we will see the pace of innovation increase and the cost of procurement decrease. We look forward to realising the benefits of this partnership, as we also seek to develop strategic partnerships in other areas to add value to our public sector customers.’’

LCRIG believe the IPS will ease the route to market for suppliers, speed up procurement, and deliver best value, innovative solutions to the taxpayer to maintain our critical highway infrastructure. 

Shropshire Council will be the first to trial the agile IPS and thereafter the first category will be fully rolled out which will initially mean the on-boarding of multiple companies that provide innovative solutions for road surface treatments. 

The LCRIG IPS platform can be accessed at: https://lcrig.org.uk/innovation/innovation-procurement-system-ips 

(Picture – LCRIG/CCS)