Our procurement and contracts strategy 2026-2031
Executive summary
Our vision for Wales is nature and people thriving together.
As we face unprecedented environmental and societal challenges, we must prioritise impactful solutions.
This strategy provides a framework for proactive procurement, grants, agreements and contract delivery against circa £100 million of influenceable spend that contributes to our well-being objectives.
It sets the strategic direction for the procurement and contracts function and our colleagues, while giving other organisations, suppliers, partners, and grantees a clear view of our priorities for the next five years.
All procurement and contract activities, planned and reactive, will align with our Corporate Plan to 2030 and Well-being Statement, whilst meeting legislative requirements that govern £11.4 billion of annual public sector expenditure on goods, services and works across Wales.
Our ambition is to strengthen environmental, social, economic, and cultural value and through five key strategic themes and a range of contractual mechanisms, we will seek to mitigate risk when spending public money.
Our primary focus is protecting the environment but this is strongly supported by an emphasis on fair work, equality, diversity and inclusion, mitigating modern slavery and human trafficking risk; underpinned by robust governance and value for money principles.
Using our procurement and contracts action tracker we will monitor our progress to measure our success against the strategy, with an end goal of delivering a sustainable future for Wales.
Our strategic themes
- Sustainability and biodiversity resilience
- Fair work, equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI)
- Modern slavery prevention
- Value for money
- Governance, compliance and innovation
Our remit
The procurement and contracts function enable the compliant, efficient, and flexible use of public funds across procurement, grants, agreements, and contract management. Supporting our well-being objectives, we provide clear routes to engagement, empower colleagues through robust governance processes, and drive continuous improvement to ensure value, assurance, and accountability in all contract activity, proportionately.
Procurement
Procurement lead the sourcing of goods, services, and works across NRW, with oversight of circa £85 million influenceable spend. Operating under UK and Welsh procurement legislation, we enable strategic delivery via a category management approach, ensuring sustainable, socially responsible, and risk-aware supply to meet current and future business needs.
Contract Management Support Service (CMSS)
CMSS provide focussed advice and guidance, supporting our contract/framework managers and grant officers to maximise value. They provide independent oversight of contract management, ensuring compliance and assurance against a variety of contract mechanisms. In addition, CMSS promote best practice, managing variations, and gathering data and information that captures the benefits realised from our agreements.
Grants and Agreements
Grants and Agreements support the compliant and consistent management of circa £6 million externally funded arrangements across NRW. Following its integration into the procurement and contracts function in April 2025, the team will continue to improve oversight and processes, aligning our contractual mechanisms with organisational priorities and ensuring value and sustainable success.
Against a mix of internal and bought-in resource, we will utilise a range of contractual mechanisms and collaborative agreements including procurement procedures, horizontal arrangements, grants, partnerships, and land management agreements. Our aim is to successfully deliver against our well-being objectives and broader ambitions aimed at safeguarding the environment and the people of Wales.
Our vision and mission statement
Procurement and Contracts’ vision is for all of our public spending to be strategically aligned, socially responsible, and delivered in a way that maximises value for the environment. To achieve our vision, our procurement and contracts mission statement is vital in providing a focus on how we achieve our ambitions. Below are the fundamentals of our mission statement.
Our mission
Our mission is to use our collective expertise, strategic leadership, and commercial influence across procurement, contract management, and grants and agreements to help achieve our well-being objectives and adherence with wider legislation, requirements and drivers. We will do this by delivering compliant, value-driven services and fostering strong stakeholder engagement and collaboration throughout the organisation and beyond.
Leadership and direction
Provide effective leadership and direction in support of our vision, values, and corporate well-being objectives
Strategic procurement and contract management
Use procurement power wisely and strategically, whilst providing an efficient end-to-end service
Driving sustainable and innovative change
Be recognised as a trusted enabler of sustainable, innovative, and modern contractual agreements
Good customer service
Provide a fit-for-purpose, good practice and compliant customer service
Our journey so far
Over the past five years, we’ve navigated difficult challenges, such as the pandemic, climate emergency, global conflicts, and disrupted supply chains. These external pressures created a volatile environment for procurement and contracts but despite these hurdles, procurement and contracts made a significant contribution to a number of successful projects and programmes. Not only in in terms delivery but in terms of the service improvements that have made a real difference to our colleagues.
Examples of procurement and contracts’ delivery contribution over the past five years:
Forest Infrastructure Framework
£36 million agreement enabling sustainable timber harvesting, rural jobs, carbon reduction, and recreation on the Welsh Government Woodland Estate.
National Peatland Action Programme
£5.1 million of funding awarded to partners in the public, private and third sectors since 2022 to help restore precious peatlands. Hundreds of hectares of peatland restored to improve carbon storage, biodiversity and water quality.
Wales Coast Path
£3.8 million of funding awarded to Welsh local authorities since 2022 to help maintain, improve and manage the Wales Coast Path – helping to connect people with nature, encourage outdoor recreation and improve well-being.
River Restoration Framework
£17 million agreement to aid the restoring natural processes, features and biodiversity of rivers, riparian corridors and wetlands.
Through developed and regularly updated contractual mechanisms, the procurement and contracts function play a significant role in ensuring we can deliver sustainable outcomes.
Delivering our vision: The themes
Successful delivery against our strategic themes will show positive and meaningful progress over the next five years. Through collaborative working across the procurement and contracts function, in partnership with technical specialists within and outside of our organisation, we will have a constant focus on the themes and how they feed into our well-being objectives.
Where relevant, the themes will be supported by specific policies; we will use the themes to make a significant difference to Wales, whilst evidencing full adherence with the legislation and drivers that demonstrate Corporate and Social Responsibility (CSR).
Sustainability and biodiversity resilience
Our procurement strategy places sustainable management of natural resources at its core, driving nature’s recovery, improving our resilience to climate change, and minimising pollution. Our efforts will contribute to a sustainable future, ensuring that our supply chains and partners actively support environmental restoration and responsible resource use. While sustainability and biodiversity resilience is our primary theme, the other themes focussed on fair work & EDI, modern slavery prevention, value for money, and governance, compliance and innovation will demonstrate our progress against other key areas, creating a holistic approach to well-being and performance.
Our contribution to our well-being objectives (WBOs) is already being felt through our close working with colleagues across the organisation and we’ve already made pledges against our corporate plan to make a positive impact with our current commitments shown below:
WBO 1: Nature is recovering
Ensuring nature’s recovery is driven throughout our supply chains, grant programmes and land management agreements through inclusion in our procurement and funding frameworks.
WBO 2: Communities are resilient to climate change
Ensuring actions for climate are driven throughout our supply chains, inclusion grant programmes and land management agreements through in our procurement and funding frameworks.
WBO 3: Pollution is minimised
Ensuring action on pollution minimisation is driven throughout our supply chains, grant programmes and land management agreements through inclusion in our procurement and funding frameworks.
Please refer to our socially responsible procurement and contracts policy (to be published in 2026/2027) for more information.
Fair work, Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI)
Our procurement strategy will embed fair work and EDI principles into our agreements, ensuring that employment practices across our supply chains, grants and agreements are ethical and inclusive, whilst ensuring well-being, health and safety remains paramount.
We will champion diversity by creating opportunities for underrepresented groups and removing barriers to participation, while promoting safe, secure, and fairly paid work. Through proactive engagement and socially responsible procurement, we will help build a resilient economy that aligns with our ethical values.
Refer to our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion policy for more information.
Modern slavery prevention
We will take a zero-tolerance approach to modern slavery and human trafficking in our delivery. Our ambition is to lead by example, using good practice approaches, robust due diligence and stakeholder reviews to identify and eliminate risk.
Our agreements will reflect our commitment to moral practices, with an aim to ensure that our public money never supports unethical practices and that human rights are upheld across all our delivery areas.
Refer to our Modern Slavery Statement for more information.
Value for money
Our strategy will deliver optimal value by balancing cost, quality, time and sustainable benefits as required. We will focus on whole-life value, ensuring that the money we spend contributes to our well-being objectives and long-term sustainable outcomes.
By supporting subject matter experts (SMEs) and the third sector by promoting relevant contracting opportunities, we can maximise public spending whilst being transparent in our business dealings.
Corporate governance, compliance and innovation
Against our values, we will uphold the highest standards of governance and compliance, ensuring transparency, integrity, and accountability in our procurement, grants, agreements and contract management activities. At the same time, we will foster a culture of innovation, embracing new technologies, flexible approaches, and creative solutions to deliver better outcomes, making risk-based decisions throughout.
This theme will have appropriate consideration of other legislative requirements, such as WH&S, Welsh language and other legal obligations that influence the agreements we put in place.
How we’ll make it happen
To deliver this strategy successfully we will embrace legislative change, including the Procurement Act (2023) and Socially Responsible Duties of the Social Partnership and Public Procurement Act (2023).
- We will promote circular economy principles across all spending mechanisms, prioritising recycled materials, reuse, and waste minimisation.
- Our strategy actively supports SMEs and local businesses, creating inclusive opportunities and simplified processes. We will also harness digital tools and management information (MI) to optimise spending, monitor performance, and mitigate risks.
- Collaboration with Welsh public sector bodies will enable joint sourcing and shared delivery, while innovation will be championed through flexible contractual approaches.
- Well-being, social value, deforestation considerations and community enhancing outcomes will be embedded into relevant agreements, considering sustainability improvement and positive impacts against a robust evidencing approach.
- The integration of the Grants and Agreements team into the Customer, Comms and Commercial directorate will drive consistency in the service across the Procurement and Contracts function and the contractual mechanisms available.
- Sustainability remains central to all that we do. Reducing our Scope 3 emissions remains a priority, whilst also enhancing our focus on nature and biodiversity outcomes through our contractual arrangements.
These actions will ensure procurement and contracts play a pivotal role in achieving the NetZero targets for Wales and driving other environmental improvements through our supply chains and with our partners.
The tools to success
- Balancing risk and opportunity to create space for innovation and creative procurement and contracts solutions.
- Regularly reviewing and/or creating new policies aligned with our key themes will ensure a clear and consistent focus on the initiatives that matter most.
- Revised procurement and contract management processes and thresholds will empower our colleagues, improving efficiency.
- Category management strategies will ensure we target success across the most critical areas of spend.
- New or improved contract mechanisms for use by our contract and framework managers will make us more adaptable.
- Increased training and education on procurement, grants, agreements, and contract management will improve knowledge.
- The application of outcome-based specifications shifts the focus from inputs to results, encouraging suppliers to deliver creative and sustainable solutions.
- Improved MI for timely, accurate insights and performance management, enabling better decision-making and risk management.
Managing risk and horizon scanning
We recognise that the procurement and contracts landscape is shaped by both predictable and unforeseen micro and macroeconomic factors.
Our strategy embraces a proactive and adaptive approach to risk management, ensuring we remain resilient and responsive to emerging societal and global opportunities and threats. Through continuous horizon scanning, we will maintain the agility to refocus and evolve our ways of working, while upholding compliance and delivering consistently against our corporate plan and statutory obligations.
We will work within the parameters of our organisational risk appetite, taking actions, approaches and decisions with an appropriate level of risk, balancing actions likely to contribute to the achievement of our goals against the inherent risks in our activities.
We will foster a culture of creativity and innovation, empowering our team and colleagues to be ambitious in their thinking and actions. We will be bold in trying new approaches and if they’re not as successful as planned, we will view them as valuable learning opportunities that strengthen our organisation.
And as we look to work closer with external partners through a variety of contractual mechanisms, we will do so with a clear assessment and understanding of the risks of channelling our expenditure through new or improved forms of grants and agreements that will be available.
By maintaining a risk-based approach to public spending, we will demonstrate value for money while remaining open to bold ideas that drive improvement and transformation.
Our approach to socially responsible procurement
What is socially responsible procurement?
“The process of improving economic, social, environmental and cultural well-being by taking action, in accordance with the sustainable development principle, aimed at achieving the well-being goals..”
Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015
We are committed to being socially responsible across all our activity. The socially responsible procurement (SRP) duty requires our contracts, frameworks, and agreements to deliver positive social, economic environmental, and cultural outcomes, aligned with the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act. We will set socially responsible objectives that fit with our strategic themes and that support delivery of our corporate plan. The objectives will be reviewed annually, with performance monitored and measured in accordance with the Social Partnerships and Public Procurement Act (2023).
Our approach to SRP will be proportionate, considering contract value, complexity, and risk. For prescribed procurements, including major construction and outsourcing contracts, NRW will build socially responsible approaches into our processes. For other contracts, we will identify key risks and opportunities to improve well-being at different stages of the procurement lifecycle, in a considered way.
By embedding SRP into our strategy and operational delivery, we will ensure that public spending delivers maximum value for Wales, supports global responsibility, and contributing to the seven well-being goals directly of the Well-being of Future Generations Act directly. The SRP objectives will be reviewed annually to reflect organisational priorities, ensuring we remain aligned with our well-being objectives.
The sustainable development principle and the five ways of working is embedded in our decision-making, enabling us to deliver long-term benefits through collaborative and inclusive approaches.
- Prevention
- Integration
- Long term
- Collaboration
- Involvement
Our socially responsible procurement objectives
Below are the eight socially responsible procurement objectives we will deliver against under this strategy. Further details on each objective are contained within our socially responsible procurement and contracts policy (to be published during 2026/2027).
|
Our themes |
Sustainability and biodiversity resilience |
Sustainability and biodiversity resilience |
Sustainability and biodiversity resilience |
Value for money |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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Well-being outcomes |
Environmental |
Environmental |
Environmental |
Economic |
|
Our SRP objectives |
Nature is recovering (Well-being Objective 1): Ensuring nature’s recovery is driven throughout our supply chains, grant programmes and land management agreements. |
Communities are resilient to climate change (Well-being Objective 2): Ensuring actions for climate are driven throughout our supply chains, grant programmes and land management agreements. |
Pollution is minimised (Well-being Objective 3): Ensuring action on pollution minimisation is driven throughout our supply chains, grant programmes and land management agreements. |
Supporting the Welsh economy: Promote circular economy principles and support our local economy through engagement with SMEs, and third sector organisations to drive more local employment. |
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Well-being goals contributed to |
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Our themes |
Fair work, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) |
Fair work, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) |
Modern slavery prevention |
Governance, compliance and innovation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Well-being outcomes |
Social |
Social |
Social |
Cultural |
|
Our SRP objectives |
Fair work: Embed fair work practices through our supply chains, grant programmes and land management agreements. |
EDI: Increase equality, diversity, and inclusivity by removing barriers, promoting diverse identities, and creating opportunities for disadvantaged groups.
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Modern slavery and human trafficking prevention: Strengthen our approaches of identifying and mitigating modern slavery and human trafficking risk through our supply chains, grant programmes and land management agreements. |
Promoting a vibrant culture, heritage and Welsh language: Promote Welsh culture, Welsh heritage, and the Welsh language through the contracts and agreements we establish. |
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Well-being goals contributed to |
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Engagement, collaboration and promotion
Our diverse work requires the letting of a range of contracts and agreements across various categories and business areas. To assist NRW in achieving our well-being objectives, procurement and contracts must collaborate with both internal and external stakeholders; this is the only way we can maximise positive outcomes for Wales.
Success will come from sharing knowledge and learning from others, especially those with expertise or experience aligned with our goals. Engagement, collaboration, and promotion are key to achieving our objectives and we'll work with key stakeholders, across the UK to leverage their expertise and achieve shared success.
Internally, we will continue to work closely with a variety of departments and SMEs, ensuring that we include their legislative requirements and/or risk management approaches as part of our processes or built into the agreements we let, as required.
Externally, we will engage with other public sector bodies, suppliers, grantees and delivery partners to increase our knowledge, maximise public spending and to deliver against our corporate objectives.
Subject matter experts (SMEs)
We will work closely with internal SMEs, such as Wellbeing, Health and Safety, ICT (cybersecurity), Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI), the Data team, projects and programme delivery and the Climate and Decarbonisation team to ensure responsible and well-informed decisions are made.
We will strengthen relationships with these experts and as we’ve done with the Wellbeing, Health and Safety and the Climate and Decarbonisation teams recently, we’ll ensure key areas of risk are built into our processes, in a proportionate way; and where relevant, we will sign-post our colleagues to relevant experts that provide advice and support in their respective areas.
External engagement and collaboration
Procurement and contracts will work closely with other contracting authorities and public sector bodies, retaining and/or building strong, collaborative relationships, sharing expertise and knowledge on sustainable and effective procurement, contract management and grant and agreement approaches. We’ll also align our processes with wider government good practice. Organisations we will work with include local authorities, environmental regulators, Forestry sector organisations, the Welsh Government, other arms length bodies and other public sector bodies with similar values, behaviours and drivers.
Our delivery partners include suppliers, grant recipients, other public bodies, non-departmental organisations and/or third parties and charities. We will foster strong ethical relationships to ensure good value, positive sustainable outcomes, such as carbon reduction and social value, whilst receiving quality goods, services, works and outcomes, irrespective of the delivery mechanism utilised.
Conclusion and measuring our progress
Our strategy describes how the procurement and contracts function, working in partnership with our colleagues and partners, will continue to build on established processes and ways of working to sustain, extend and develop our service to our customers and stakeholders. We will ensure the actions that support this strategy will be reviewed annually to ensure our targets remain aligned with our corporate objectives, UK and Wales related legislation, policies and requirements.
The strategy provides a solid platform for the function to act flexibly and responsively in what is a changeable and challenging environment, where risks are prevalent and mitigation measures require regular review.
Our procurement and contracts strategy is our commitment to supporting the Corporate Plan to 2030 and wider Welsh and UK objectives. Operating within the new Procurement Act and Social Partnerships and Public Procurement (Wales) Act, we'll embed good practice, whilst focusing on robust compliance for the areas of expenditure that are within our remit.
We aim to deliver an effective and efficient end-to-end service, providing tangible outcomes for the organisation, using a range of contractual mechanisms that we have at our disposal.
By tightly controlling annual influenceable spend of circa £100 million, we aim to maximise public value while ensuring optimal value for money. Acting strategically will ensure strong governance, improve the customer experience, delivering positive well-being outcomes, promoting corporate responsibility and simplifying processes for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and voluntary, community, and social enterprises (VCSEs).
We'll measure the success of our procurement and contracts strategy through clear KPIs aligned with our Corporate Plan, the Wales Procurement Policy Statement (WPPS), and relevant legislation. Our procurement and contracts action tracker will be routinely reviewed to assess our progress, whilst also allowing for new actions and targets to be included.
Evidenced against the five key themes of sustainability and biodiversity resilience, fair work, EDI, modern slavery prevention, value for money and corporate governance, compliance and innovation, the action tracker will be central to reporting on progress. The regular reporting will demonstrate the tangible value delivered, will drive continuous improvement, and ensure our procurement, grants, agreements and contract management activities directly contribute to the long-term well-being and sustainability goals of that our organisation is committed to delivering against.
The procurement and contracts action plan
The procurement and contracts action plan provides the details of what our function will work towards over the next five years against our key themes.