AUTUMN 2025 DIGITAL - Flipbook - Page 37
CENTRAL GOVERNMENT
How JAGGAER enabled the
Foreign Commonwealth
and Development Office
to optimize its compliance
procedures to support
essential Government
Supplier Code of Conduct
standards
Foreign Commonwealth and
Development Of昀椀ce (FCDO)
sought to optimize its system
of suppliers’ code compliance
and create total visibility across
its commercial department via
a single, uni昀椀ed platform. By
leveraging JAGGAER’s Supplier
Management, Sourcing, and
Contracts solutions, the FCDO’s
Supply Chain Risk: Ethics team
has reduced supplier complaints,
streamlined compliance and
procurement processes and
improved record keeping and
collaboration.
What is FCDO?
The Foreign, Commonwealth &
Development Of昀椀ce (FCDO) was
established in 2020 following
the merger of the Foreign and
Commonwealth Of昀椀ce (FCO) with
the Department for International
Development (DFID). It leads the
UK’s diplomatic, development and
consular work around the world.
The Challenge
The FCDO procures a wide range
of goods, services, and contracts
work, from embassy construction
to technical assistance. To
foster best practice and ensure
effective use of UK taxpayers’
funds, suppliers must adhere
to the FCDO’s values on ethics,
sustainability, and responsible
business, as outlined in its
Supplier Code of Conduct (the
Code). Historically, the FCDO’s
Supply Chain Risk: Ethics
team used a manual process,
collecting supplier information
through WeTransfer, Excel and
PowerPoint, an approach that
quickly became unmanageable.
As a result, the team pivoted to
a system originally designed for
Supply Relationship Management
(SRM) colleagues, inputting
questions for suppliers to
demonstrate compliance with
the FCDO’s Code by submitting
documents for evaluation.
However, this system did not
meet the team’s needs; it lacked
scoring functionality, requiring
a workaround using Excel
spreadsheets to score responses
and provide feedback. It was
also unstable; recurring issues
were seldom resolved promptly,
and explanations for them rarely
forthcoming. In all, the situation
added growing ‘non-value’ time
by having to explain issues to
suppliers and eroded con昀椀dence
in the platform within the team.
The introduction of a new
interface to the SRM system
proved a tipping point for the
FCDO to make a change. The
team realized they needed a
more reliable and stable solution,
with integrated review, scoring,
work昀氀ow, and reporting features.
The Solution
JAGGAER was selected as the
Procurement platform for the
newly created FCDO organization
in 2020. With limited time until
their previous supplier’s contract
expired, and subject to the same
budgetary constraints as all other
government departments, it was
apt for the team to investigate
the functionality for managing
compliance inherent within the
platform.
When coupled with the
opportunity to deliver cost
savings and work across the
FCDO’s entire commercial
department from a “single
system”, the platform’s potential
presented a vast opportunity and
an easy decision for leadership
to support. Indeed, integrating
compliance processes with the
procurement process within
a single system has created
potential for greater collaboration
within that wider commercial
department.
With the system already in
place at the FCO as a sourceto-pay procurement platform,
the newly merged FCDO added
Supplier Management, Sourcing,
and Contracts solutions.
Information was transitioned from
the legacy SIMS system to the
new platform. The Supply Chain
Risk: Ethics team supported
suppliers with onboarding
through the creation of training
videos and user manuals with
the Supply Chain Ethics Risk
Manager and colleagues acting
as ad hoc consultants to address
any outstanding issues or
queries—mostly around log-ins.
When the platform was
implemented as a compliance
tool, it dramatically improved
the supplier experience.
After launching it for supplier
collaboration, supplier complaints
dropped signi昀椀cantly freeing up
FCDO resources from circular
investigations. Where scoring
was previously stand-alone
via Excel spreadsheets—now,
question sets, responses and
scoring are all contained within
the system. This enables better
record keeping and makes
it easier to access records
and transfer responsibility
for suppliers between team
members in the event of absence
or role change. Staff within
the wider procurement team
have visibility into whether a
supplier is Code compliant or
not, and integrating compliance
processes with the procurement
process within a single system
has enabled greater visibility of
supplier code compliance status
within the wider commercial
department.
The FCDO can now align
the supplier’s Code compliance
record with the Standard
Selection Questionnaire (SQ)
process—the 昀椀rst step in proving
a supplier is quali昀椀ed to submit
a tender which involves them
providing a considerable amount
of basic information. Previously,
suppliers had to provide this
twice—once when preparing the
tender and again as part of the
compliance process.
The Supply Chain Risk: Ethics
team successfully delivered the
transfer of supplier information
from its legacy compliance
system to the new platform
within a tight timescale. In doing
so it is supporting an essential
process of government with
compliance now integrated into
the full procurement lifecycle.
GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC SECTOR JOURNAL AUTUMN 2025
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