Celebrating BlueLight Commercial's Sixth Anniversary and Annual Commercial Conference

This week BlueLight Commercial was pleased to mark its sixth anniversary with its Annual Commercial Conference, welcoming colleagues from across the organisation alongside key partners and stakeholders.

Since its establishment in 2020, BlueLight Commercial, through national collaboration, has helped deliver over £300m of value through efficiencies, cashable savings, cost avoidance and cost recovery for members, growing to nearly 100 staff and addressing all areas of significant third-party spend.

Some highlights of key achievements over the past six years include:

• Aviation: Providing commercial support to NPAS to deliver the National Fleet Replacement Programme, introducing seven new helicopters into service nationally.
• Fleet: Supporting NPCC Fleet Portfolio vehicle standardisation across England & Wales, aggregating demand and central ordering resulting in approximate additional 5% saving per vehicle, through reduced duplication and internal costs and supplier overheads.
• Energy: Development of national commercial strategy to address market instability and fragmentation, helping 39 forces reduce exposure to price fluctuations.
• Uniform: Delivering over 16 frameworks and working with over 60 suppliers to cover most of the uniform and equipment requirements from general patrol to specialist roles. Ensuring extensive operational officer user trials are at the forefront of the commercial process and specification.
• ICT Software: Aggregating demand to leverage national pricing to unlock greater value and developing national innovative solutions including across Text Redaction, Robotic Process Automation, Victim & Citizen Engagement, Live Facial Recognition and Legal Media Digitisation. For example, £2.6m saved on national i2 Pro Intelligence Software.
• ICT End User Devices: Development of joint competitions, aligning common requirements to deliver on average savings of over 19% across devices such as laptops, phones and more.
• Forensics: Coordination of physical forensics with the successful convergence of physical forensics contracts.
• Revenue: Working with partners across policing to optimise cost recovery and income generation across Custody, Special Policing Services, Airports and Firearms Licensing.
• Sustainability & Social Value: Supporting Sustainability and Social Value strategy across forces and suppliers, including SMEs.
• Procurement Act: Leading the implementation of the new Procurement Act 2023 regulations across policing and suppliers.
• Capability: Launch of the BlueLight Commercial Academy, bringing together commercial development for members with CIPS training for professional commercial development across the public sector.
• E-Commercial: Development of a national e-commercial platform creating consistent buying processes, easier supplier engagement and shared data standards improving collaboration, efficiency and transparency.

The conference focused on driving commercial excellence and delivering value for policing and fire services through efficiency savings, while setting the future direction for national commercial delivery.

Guest attendees included Joy Allen, Police and Crime Commissioner for Durham and Chair of the BLC Board; Heather Benjamin, Senior Independent Board Member; Claire Medhurst, Assistant Chief Officer for Kent and Essex Police; Professor Paul Taylor, Chief Scientific Adviser for Policing; Tony Blaker, Chief of Staff to the National Police Chiefs' Council's Digital, Data and Technology Coordinating Committee; and Home Office colleagues Ian Caplan, Director for Police Standards and Performance Improvement, and Kay Grubb, Programme Director for the Police Efficiency and Collaboration Programme.

The conference provided an opportunity to reflect on achievements and look ahead to the year ahead, as BlueLight Commercial continues its drive as a trusted national commercial service harnessing innovation, value creation and supply chain management to drive police reform and deliver policing outcomes locally.

Lianne Deeming, Chief Executive, commented: “I am proud of what we have achieved with our partners since 2020 – driving efficiency and strengthening collective buying power. The foundations we have built enable us to continue harnessing national collaboration, innovation and stronger commercial capability to deliver faster, more efficient change, and give frontline officers and firefighters confidence in the tools and services they rely on.”