City of Cardiff Council achieves over £550,000 in annualised sourcing savings following procurement transformation

Challenge 

The City of Cardiff Council provides services for a population of around 350,000 and is the leading commercial centre of Wales. In common with local authorities across the UK, the Council faced the reality of significantly reduced budgets and identified the need to adopt new methods of delivering services - improving quality, speed, visibility, and fairness in how it secured home-to-school transport services. 

The Council's £28 million Passenger Transport contracts were traditionally allocated through a standard Framework Agreement with 31 external providers operating over 500 daily routes. Once the framework was in place, new suppliers were effectively locked out for a four-year contract period - limiting competition, suppressing pricing, and restricting the Council's ability to introduce new providers or respond to changes in service requirements. 

The Council sought to transform this approach: to open the market to new and emerging providers, introduce genuine competition, improve service quality and reliability, and achieve sustainable cost savings - all through a fair, transparent, and fully electronic procurement process. 

Solution 

Working with Proactis, the Council introduced a Passenger Transport Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) - a fully electronic tendering process enabling new suppliers to join at any time, provided they met defined safety and quality criteria. The process uses Proactis reverse eAuction technology, with suppliers submitting an initial bid before participating in a one-hour competitive reverse auction in which they can actively bid for routes. 

Transport contracts were structured across four lots: taxis with regular drivers, vehicles with 8–17 seats, and vehicles with over 17 seats were run as reverse eAuctions; ad-hoc taxi journeys were managed through a conventional tender process. The auction model supports procurement best practice, technical automation, and complete auditability throughout. 

To support the launch, a series of engagement events was designed and facilitated in partnership with Business Wales, inviting providers ranging from small local taxi firms to large coach companies. Over 60 local providers successfully registered on the DPS within weeks, with the system launched on schedule ahead of the new academic year.