Buy Local Spend Local

Flexsys Exhibition Stand

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The second Buy Local Spend Local event took place at Rochdale Town Hall and gave local businesses an opportunity to book and attend one-to-one meetings with key decision makers, view a number of exhibitions featuring local businesses and get advice and guidance on how to tender for public sector contracts.

Rochdale Council Chief Executive Roger Ellis opened the event explaining the Council had signed a Small Business Friendly Concordat in December 2006 at the inaugural Buy Local Spend Local event held at Rochdale Town Hall. One of the key priorities for the Council and the Local Strategic Partnership he said is to increase jobs and prosperity, and although the private sector play a leading role in this, Mr Ellis said the Council and its partners have a key role to play in providing the environment where investment can flourish and local businesses can prosper.

Mr Ellis added: "The signing of the Concordat last year signalled the Council’s commitment to helping small and medium sized businesses in the borough better access and win Council contracts. Since that time the Council has been working hard to embed the principles of the SME Concordat within its procurement policies. As a result of last years event companies such as Heritage Street Furniture, Artem Creative Print, Carter Origin and Virtual Typing Services have all been successful in securing contracts with the Council, and we hope that they will continue to be successful for many more years to come. And I am delighted to say that since signing the Concordat in 2006, the Council has increased the amount of money it spends with local small and medium sized businesses from 23% to 26%.   As a result of today I hope this will continue to rise not only with businesses supplying the council but wider public sector opportunities.

"However, we realise that more can and should be done if the Council and its partner organisations are to take the lead in driving forward the economic regeneration of the borough over the long-term. Over the course of the next few months the Council will be revising its Corporate Procurement Strategy and we aim to incorporate regeneration and sustainability as core components of our procurement policy and practices.

"In March of last year the Local Strategic Partnership Board challenged Rochdale to be the first borough in the country in which all major public service providers gave a commitment to sign up to the principles of the SME Concordat. We are absolutely delighted that the Rochdale section of Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce, Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale PCT, the Impact Partnership, Link4Life and Rochdale Boroughwide Housing have indicated their commitment to levelling the playing field for many of our smaller businesses by signing up to the SME Concordat.

"Moving forward we will be developing an action plan to monitor implementation of the Concordat to ensure that the commitments made by the Council and its partners here today result in tangible outcomes for the local business community."

The Exhibitors:

• Farrer Consulting – Heywood
• Rochdale Online – Rochdale
• Nexus Drinks Systems – Rochdale
• McKenna Brothers – Middleton
• Threefold Signs amp; Exhibitions – Rochdale
• Anthony K Associates – Middleton
• Howens Joinery – Middleton
• Cartridge World – Rochdale
• NW Retail Solutions – Rochdale
• Heritage Street Furniture/Isaac Butterworth – Rochdale
• Walter Kershaw Artist – Littleborough
• The North West Centre of Excellence – Ashton-under-Lyne
• Flexsys (UK) Ltd – Heywood
• Jericho Construction (CIC) – Rochdale
• J21 – Rochdale