Figures uncovered by Oxygen Finance’s Local Government Third-Party Spend Almanac highlight the top 20 suppliers working with the public sector, by both the number of local authorities they serve and by the total spend received.

The 20 Suppliers working with the highest number of local authorities.

Three organisations have each worked with more than 300 local authorities during 2022. The list – the top 20 suppliers by the highest number of local authorities they worked with – notes how these top three suppliers, the Royal Mail Group Ltd (worked with 325 councils), Civica (also 325) and the Citizens Advice Bureau (301), have retained their position in the top three since the previous 2021 figures.

In a world increasingly dominated by remote and flexible working following the Covid pandemic, the top five also includes IT/communication companies Idox PLC (also in the same position, 4^th, as in 2021) and a move up the chart from British Telecom in 5^th place. The top ten contains additional ICT companies Capita Group, Vodafone and NEC Software Solutions.

Five utility companies also feature in the list, with top 20 places recorded by SSE PLC, Npower Ltd (a new entry), E.ON UK PLC, EDF Energy and Totalenergies Gas & Power Ltd.  Alongside Npower, other new entries to this top 20 list in 2022 include The Wildlife Trusts and The Oyster Partnership  Ltd.

Who received the highest spend in 2022?

Commentary on another set of figures – the 20 suppliers with the highest spend in 2022 – highlights how councils spend more than £700M with Veolia, with the waste company staying top of the chart from 2021. Two new entrants to the same top 20 list are from the highways industry – Cormac Solutions (part of The Corserv Group and a Cornwall Council Company) and Milestone Infrastructure Ltd – with local authorities spending over £600M and over £300M with these two organisations respectively during 2022.

Building and construction works also appear to be on the rise as 50% of the top ten featured in the ‘highest spend’ list have received more than £350M from the public sector during 2022. These organisations – Wilmott Dixon, Kier Group, Wates Group and ENGIE (including Equans) are joined by  Morgan Sindall who despite finding themselves in 11^th place this year still maintained spend of over £300M.

Total spend with the top 20 suppliers now exceeds £7.5bn; this is approximately 10% of the total third-party spend in 2022.

If you want to take a more detailed look at Local Government spending, download the complete Local Authority Third-Party Spend Almanac 2023.

All data contained within the Local Authority Third-Party Spend Almanac 2023 has been sourced from Oxygen Finance’s Insights Spend tool as extracted in May 2023 and compares supplier data by highest number of local authorities they worked with and by highest spend from 2022 to 2021. Produced in collaboration with EY, the Local Authority spend Almanac for 2023 offers a view of expenditure and Carbon emission data across Local Government in England.