Procurement and Resources

What is Procurement?

Procurement is the process an organisation uses to buy goods, services, or works from external suppliers. It is more than just purchasing — it is a structured, strategic cycle that ensures the organisation gets what it needs in the right way, at the right time, for the right price, and from the right supplier.

The NFRS Procurement Section a business management function that ensures identification, sourcing, tendering, access and management of the external resources that the organisation needs to fulfil its strategic objectives.

The NFRS procurement function also encompasses the services Stores section. This section purchases and inventory manage the organisations stock to enable operational equipment, PPE and uniform etc. to be delivered to and from stations.

Our work is integral to the NFRS Enabling Strategy.

Procurement exists to explore supply market opportunities and to implement resourcing strategies that deliver the best possible outcome to the organisation, its stakeholders and customers whilst maximising value for money through reduced costs and or increased service/ product levels to minimise the total cost of ownership and deliver the best value.

What do we do?

NFRS spend approximately £14million each year on the procurement of goods, works and services from a diverse range of suppliers. Professional and compliant procurement processes are delivered to ensure NFRS achieves the best value for money.

To deliver value for money, the Procurement Team ensures that purchases are process driven from identification of need through to contract formation. The processes are effectively managed to ensure compliance with the NFRS procurement policy, NFRS financial regulations and Procurement Act 2023

Procurement Act 2023

The Procurement Act 2023 is the biggest change to public procurement regulations in decades and went live on 24 February 2025. The Procurement Act 2023 is mandatory for all public contracting authorities.

The Procurement Act 2023 has a set of statutory objectives that NFRS must have regard to when conducting a procurement, these are.

Delivering Value for Money
Maximising Public benefit
Sharing information (transparency)
Acting (and being seen to act) with Integrity
Equal treatment of suppliers
Supporting SME Participation

NFRS Financial Regulations, these regulations include social value responsibilities and how we consider the impact that our procurement decisions have on our local economy and corporate objectives.

NFRS advertises new procurement opportunities with a contract value of £25k via their eprocurement portal In-Tend/ BlueLight commercial portal.

Suppliers can register on the Bluelight E-procurement portal , this will allow access to tenders published by fire services across England and Wales.

Impact on Suppliers

Suppliers should understand the new processes which apply to all procurement opportunities published after 24 February 2025.

The Government made an announcement regarding the commencement of the procurement Act and related FAQs.

Transforming Public Procurement - Procurement Act 2023 commencement date update

Suppliers should familiarise themselves with the Act and the changes they will need to make. The below are a number of resources they may find useful.

Fire and Rescue services are working with BlueLight Commercial (BLC) across a range of commercial activities. BLC offer supplier training or webinar events, including specific ones for micro and small businesses and VCSEs, dates and bookings details are available on their website.

Prospective Suppliers

Companies who wish to introduce themselves as prospective suppliers to NFRS can do so by sending brief details about themselves and the goods, services and/or works that they can supply to procurement@notts-fire.gov.uk

Employees of the Authority who wish to be considered as an independent supplier to NFRS must follow the same introductory process as all other prospective suppliers and will be subject to the same process for selection as all other prospective suppliers regarding transparency, fairness and competition.

NFRS does not hold a list of preferred suppliers for any spend category as each Procurement opportunity is considered on its own merits, based on published thresholds.

NFRS does not bind itself to respond to or to contact any prospective supplier following receipt of introductory information.

Conditions of Contract - NFRS Standard Terms and Conditions

Purchase Orders

No goods, services and/or works should be supplied to NFRS by any current or prospective supplier without the supplier first having received an official Purchase Order.

In the event that any goods, services and/or works are supplied without the supplier first having received an official Purchase Order, any or all such goods, services or works may be requested to be collected from NFRS by the supplier at their costs with no charges accepted by NFRS.

Contract Register

The Procurement Section collate and manage NFRSs contract register. This is used to ensure transparency reporting, compliance and retendering aligned to the NFRS procurement pipeline.

Some contracts on the register may have limited information, this is due to the register being created after the contracts were let. All newly tender contracts have the correct information published.

The Contract Register is published via the following links.

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021 and earlier

Transparency reports

Invitation to tender (ITT) reports

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021 and earlier

Contact the NFRS Procurement Team

If you have a procurement question, please contact us via procurement@notts-fire.gov.uk

Engineering

The Engineering department is split into two separate teams, Equipment and Transport.

The Equipment section is responsible for the testing and maintenance of all existing operational equipment, and RPE throughout the service. All equipment that requires asset management is tracked through the Red kite asset management system which has been adopted as the Service's recognised platform.

The Transport section is responsible for the cradle-to-grave management of the vehicle fleet including the management of all vehicle maintenance within the Service. All vehicle records are kept on the Tranman system which has been adopted as the services recognised platform.

Both teams liaise closely together with the Service Delivery, Procurement, Learning and Development, and Service Assurance departments to carry out research and development, and specifications for new equipment and vehicles. The Department also carries out investigations into near-misses involving equipment and Vehicles.

Equipment areas of responsibility

Liaising with Response and other service's nationwide regarding research into new kit
Liaising with Stores regarding the procurement of new kit
Working with Transport regarding new vehicle builds and stowage
Completing the testing of certain items of equipment such as branches and standpipes etc
Organise all outsourced testing by liaising with contractors for equipment, Holmatro, EPD's etc
Managing the Red Kite asset management system
Creating and managing risk assessments, Information Documents and Standard Tests for all items of kit
Completing near-miss investigations regarding equipment
Keeping operational staff up-to-date with equipment developments through the use of Staff Briefing Papers, Safety Critical Information, Safety Alerts and this intranet page

Transport areas of responsibility

Assisting user departments to create new vehicle user requirement documentation
Writing vehicle specifications and helping to guide vehicle users through the procurement process
Introducing new vehicles into the Service, and disposing of old ones in line with the current Service policy
Ensuring vehicle maintenance complies with all statutory requirements
Responding to vehicle breakdowns and defects
Supervision of the external maintenance contractor
Liaising with external suppliers to ensure the Service obtains value-for-money
Ensure that all aspects of fleet documentation are maintained following best practice and statutory requirements
Manage all Service vehicle-related accidents
Ensure the fleet has access to suitable fuel supplies
Monitoring and controlling vehicle movements
Planning for Service commitments and community events when vehicles are required
Ensuring that the Service has sufficient reserve appliance resilience available to cover
Ensure the day-to-day management of the Service Driver License checking system

Estates

What we do

Estates is a small department comprising the Estates Manager and the Assistant Estates Officer (HQ based), and also two Site Supervisors providing mobile maintenance services across the Estate. A busy team, Estates has a remit to:

maintain the NFRS estate in optimum condition and quality to ensure it meets the business need and that facilities and services are secure and fit for purpose in supporting front-line operational service delivery;
maintain full compliance of our properties and mechanical and electrical assets;
manage and administer the various leases and licences for collaboration and partner organisations who occupy accommodation within our Estate;
assist with scoping and project managing minor new works;
manage and administer workplace parking permits associated with the Workplace Parking Levy.
support NFRS in delivering its core operational activities;

We work within a property strategy and development plan to ensure that all Fire Stations and administration buildings provide a secure, safe, accessible and pleasant environment for all our staff, collaboration partners and stakeholders, and our plan is developed in step with wider NFRS organisational and strategic planning - taking account of future fire service needs, developing exiting facilities and replacing ageing buildings with new-build and fit for purpose fire stations.

A large volume of the maintenance work is outsourced – the portfolio of Estates Contracts includes :

Multi Activity Contract (MAC)

Buildings – structure and fabric
Building Services – Mechanical, and Electrical
Grounds – Hard Standing / Fences / Gates / Barriers
Legionella Services
Technical Expertise

MAC contract – A guide to our performance KPI’S
Priority Classification	Priority Description	Response / Rectification Time	Notes
P1	Emergency	4 hour response	Attend site within 4 hours of receiving notification of the Emergency. Outside of Standard Operating Hours, the emergency is to be attended, rectified / made safe and the site left secure.
P2	Urgent	48 hours completion	Repair to be undertaken and the asset brought back into service within 48 hours of receiving the notification of an Urgent repair.
P3	Essential	10 days completion	Repair to be undertaken and asset brought back into service within 10 days of receiving notification of the essential repair.
P4	Routine	30 days completion	Repair to be undertaken and asset brought back into service within 30 days of receiving notification of Routine repair.

FM Single Service Contracts

Estates also manages / administers a number of FM service related contracts including:

PAT Testing
Hygiene Services
Water Cooler Dispensers
Building / Mobile Security Services
Electronic Vehicle Chargers
Portable Fire Fighting Equipment
Insurance Inspection

Defect Reporting

Day-to-day planned and reactive maintenance is managed and coordinated via the Estates Concerto System – a Computer Aided FM System (CAFM) which all NFRS staff have access to through the NFRS Intranet.

When you report a defect through Concerto, Estates will triage the fault to:

determine who should carry out the repairs;
assign a response KPI depending upon the nature and urgency and expected duration of the repairs;
instruct attendance by either the Estates Supervisors and/or Contractors as necessary in accordance with the assigned KPI

The requester will receive automated updates on defect resolution process as the job status changes within Concerto.

Moves and Changes & Minor New Works

From time to time works may be needed on sites and stations to modify or enhance facilities and physical working arrangements to: improve operational performance and efficiency; enhance welfare and safety; or to support new initiatives. Such changes and new works should be requested via a Change My Space / Minor New Works Request Form.

Estates will be happy to assist and advise in the preparation of any request and will manage the instruction and implementation of any works and changes through to successful completion and handover.

Utilities & Business Rates

Estates administer and monitor utilities and business rates, ensuring that NFRS secures best market value for money. We also analyse trending data to identify opportunities to reduce our consumption and carbon footprint and promote targeted energy efficiency measures.

Security, Safety and Access Control

We support NFRS in maintaining high levels of safety and security around the estate - providing a consistently high standard of security, critical system condition monitoring, reporting and early warning to safeguard personnel, stations, assets and systems. These services include physical security measures such as access control, fire, intruder, CCTV, critical systems and infrastructure.

Leases and Licences

We administer a number of tenancies and licences to occupy and use services and facilities across the Estate with a number of partner organisations including Notts Police, and charitable and voluntary sector organisations.

What we don't do

As a simple guide to help direct your request to the right team - Estates supports the buildings (structure and fabric), all hard-wired / plumbed-in services, perimeter security fencing/gates and station-based portable fire fighting equipment. Generally speaking, if it isn’t nailed down – it isn’t Estates and will be dealt with by the following teams:

Operational Systems – Systel / Telecoms / Intercoms – ICT
Diesel Tanks and Dispensing Equipment – Equipment / Engineering Team
Grounds Maintenance – Procurement and Stores
Pest Control – Procurement and Stores
Cleaning – Procurement and Stores

If in doubt, we are happy for you to give us a call and enquire and we will help direct your call accordingly.