Supplier Update | May 2018

We are now busy preparing for our National Supplier Conference taking place in June. Following on from February where we launched our CP6 procurement strategy, the event will provide further detail on some of the ways we will be looking to improve in the next control period. Collaboration and alliancing best practice, diversity and inclusion and a greater emphasis on how we manage payments within our supply chain will all feature on the agenda. If you haven't already registered, please do so by 31 May.

It has been great to see so many strong nominations submitted for the Rail Partnership Awards. They are really good examples of the innovative, collaborative work that is going on across the industry. You can take a look at the much anticipated shortlist below - congratulations to all of the finalists.

Finally, you may have seen that the Rail Minister has announced an independent review of Network Rail's vegetation management and asked us to suspend all felling during the current nesting season, except where it is safety critical. We are currently in the process of preparing guidance around this which we will issue to your teams as soon as possible.

Matthew Steele
Commercial and Development Director

Rail Partnership Awards shortlist

We are pleased to announce the shortlist for the 2018 Rail Partnership Awards - you can take a look at the finalists here.

Our panel of Network Rail judges are now in the process of deciding their Winner, Highly Commended and Runner Up for each category alongside external judges from across the industry.

The winners will be announced at the awards ceremony taking place on 7 June, including our Supplier of the Year. Find out more about the awards here.

Standards challenge process

Earlier this month, Network Rail launched the Standards Challenge Process to encourage suppliers and stakeholders to propose changes to our standards.

The aim is to enable greater innovation, cost efficiency and third party funding into the rail network, whilst maintaining safety.

If you would like to challenge a standard, the process is straight forward - download a form on our new Standards Challenge webpage and submit it to the dedicated mailbox. You will also find a guide to completing the form and some more information on the process on the website too.

Working together

Network Rail is committed to collaborative working both internally and with our external stakeholders. As we all know - effective, collaborative business relationships have been shown to deliver higher performance, reduce costs and provide a better working environment for all.

When ISO44001 (international standard for best practice collaborative working) was launched in March 2017 replacing the British Standard 11000, Network Rail were one of six organisations to be the first in the world to achieve certification to ISO44001 following a series of collaborative assessments.

With collaborative working being a key part of our CP6 strategy, we are committed to continue with and improve upon our collaborative approach. In recognition of this, in March 2018 the last three years of being independently assessed by BSI resulted in our ISO44001 certification being renewed for a further three years. Achieving this standard and benefiting from the collaborative approach couldn't have been done alone, it is also great recognition of our collaborative partners within the supply chain - so thank you.

PRISM scores in the press

Construction News publish PRISM scores

Construction News recently published an article on our supplier performance which included PRISM performance scores.

You will already be aware that we are subject to freedom of information requests and therefore anything we record and report on can rightly be requested by the public.

We are obliged to be transparent with this information, but do ensure the information provided in these requests is correct and the journalists or interested parties understand the context of the data.

A process has now been established with our freedom of information team whereby if we receive similar requests involving our suppliers, we will make you aware. This should provide you with visibility of what may be published.

Dates for your diaries

Upcoming events and forums

7 June
National Supplier Conference
Registration is now open for our National Supplier Conference and is set to cover some of the key improvements we will be making to the way we work in CP6.

7 June
Rail Partnership Awards
The Rail Partnership Awards have been planned to coincide with our National Supplier Conference. You can find more information on the awards at: www.railpartnershipawards.com

If there are any particular topics you would like us to cover at our conferences or within these updates, please get in touch at: contactIP@networkrail.co.uk