Energy Procurement Action Plan 2010 update

The Energy Procurement Action Plan Opens in a new window was published in response to a review of London local authority energy procurement practices. Originally designed for use across London local government, the Action Plan is being used as an improvement tool in organisations across the London public sector and from public sector organisations across the UK.

It can help your organisation to identify and manage the key areas that enable effective and efficient energy procurement and administration processes. It can also assist you in identifying areas of opportunity for improvement and form the basis of a review of your energy category activities and potential for efficiencies and savings.

In 2007 and 2008, London authorities participated in the self-assessment and demonstrated improved performance in several activities. The results helped LEP target areas for further improvement, such as implementing Automated Meter Reading and improving Financial Energy Management systems. These findings enabled us to specify that AMR installation should be enabled as part of the energy supply contracts and also supported Buying Solutions business case to offer an AMR framework. Although we decided not to repeat the detailed self-assessment in 2009, the Action Plan is still an excellent tool to help your organisation and has been cited as best practice in the OGC publication 'Energy buying: the effective way to manage risk'.

Following the success of the original Action Plan, we will be developing a new version during 2010/11, to enable boroughs to work at their own pace to develop their internal capability to achieve savings across a wide range of energy management, administration and payment activities. The ability to achieve and demonstrate improvement and efficiencies against a template of best practice is particularly valuable in these current times of unprecedented budget pressure.