Umme Imam

Centre Manager
The Angelou Centre, Newcastle upon Tyne

Promotes the economic independence of Black and Minority Ethnic women through training and development.

In order to put her organisation on a stronger footing by reducing its reliance on charitable funding, Umme decided to gain a better understanding of procurement, and what voluntary organisations need to do to compete for public sector contacts.

“PNE’s Preparing Successful Bids training was very good and helped me to identify how the organisation needs to prepare to compete for public sector tenders.”

Inspired by the knowledge and skills she gained from the course, Umme has submitted one tender bid. This has been successful and involves the organisation taking the lead in delivering the North East VCS Equalities Coalition Gender Action Plan. The bid is worth £52k, which is a significant new contract for her organisation.

Umme believes that PNE’s course helped her to secure this successful bid, “I hadn’t done many tender bids before, and I now feel much more confident and better informed.”

For others considering bidding for public service contracts for the first time, Umme’s advice is, “Be really clear how your organisation fits in with the bid and don’t compromise your core purpose.”

Umme’s main concern regarding procurement relates to protecting small voluntary organisations that support consortia style bids managed by large organisations.

“Large organisations will often include reference to your organisation as a deliverer of a key service, however when they win the contract you don’t hear anything from them. I think there should be a way to protect the interests of smaller organisations, and more accountability of larger organisations on delivery through their specified partners during the procurement process.”