| AdminHistory | The Contracts and Stores Sub-Committee was established in January 1916 to investigate the viability of establishing a full standing committee on contracts and stores 'such as exists in other towns'. The sub-committee liaised with London County Council and the London North Western Railway in order to appreciate their arrangements. In 1917, the sub-committee recommended to the main committee to adopt a Stores and Contracts Committee. In 1921, a Contracts and Stores Sub-Committee and an accompanying departmental infrastructure were established, acting as a sub-committee of the General Purposes Committee, rather than as a standing committee in its own right. The purpose of the sub-committee and department was to organise the purchasing and control the stores centrally for the entire Council, rather than each department looking after its own, unless those stores were peculiar to that department.
In 1922, the sub-committee set-up the Stores Purchasing Advisory Committee (see BCC/1/BZ), also called the Officials’ Advisory Committee, to advise it and the General Purpose Committee as to the stores and materials that could be collectively purchased and which standing committees were best placed to order stores. In April 1935, the sub-committee was amalgamated with the Joint Stores Purchasing Sub-Committee (see BCC/1/AG/19), which ordered comestibles, domestic goods and medicines, and to reflect this the name altered its name to the Stores and Contracts Sub-Committee, and the minute sequence started again.
In October 1946, the sub-committee established another committee. The Department Purchasing Officers Committee reported to the sub-committee at quarterly intervals on contracts and matters of mutual interest, for example, workmen’s clothing (see BCC/1/EE). This committee was a co-operative, and comprised of designated ‘purchasing’ officials from the ten departments of the Council. After a report by the Working Party of the Stores and Contracts Sub-Committee, both committees were discontinued in 1964, and a Central Purchasing Advisory Committee was substituted (see BCC/1/DC). Its function was broadly the same, but it was comprised of the Departmental Purchasing Officers from the Housing Management, Public Works and Transport Departments only. These departments now purchased through this central committee and not individually. The Department Purchasing Officers Committee met twice a year to discuss general contracts until 1971.
A special sub-sub-committee also reported to this sub-committee. It was appointed in February 1934, with responsibility for coal purchasing (see BCC 1/AG/10/1/11). |