Monday 10th March 2025
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Transforming public services – expanding Stone King’s consultancy services
Based in Manchester, Sandra Hamilton has joined Stone King to lead projects demonstrating the art of the possible in collaborative commissioning.
Working alongside Julian Blake, this innovative work expands our service offering into public sector transformation. By distinguishing market purchasing from the system stewardship needed to co-design and deliver 21st century public services, Stone King is supporting contracting authorities in developing more collaborative pathways; pathways that involve moving from procurement to partnership, placing VCSE expert knowledge at the heart of social value system intelligence.
Sandra started her career in publishing at IPC women’s magazines. Following her passion for nature and new adventures, in 1989, Sandra emigrated to Vancouver, BC, where she was appointed Director of Marketing at The Vancouver Sun newspaper. Later, as Publisher of BC Woman Magazine, she met many inspiring women leading fascinating lives, often in service of others. This work ultimately created an opportunity to manage the business interests of Canadian World Champion and four-time Olympic rower Silken Laumann, who was transitioning from sport into business and was very involved in charitable work. Over time, Sandra’s management consultancy business expanded, providing professional services to other retiring Olympians and to public benefit organisations working to improve lives and drive social innovation.
In 2003, while working on the bid to bring the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games to Canada, Sandra’s social value journey began. With a focus on people and the social aspect of sustainability, the Vancouver Games were the first Olympics in history to advance a sustainability strategy. This is where Sandra first encountered the power of procurement to change lives.
Sandra said: “I witnessed an Olympic flower contract transform the lives of women escaping domestic violence, and I couldn’t unsee the potential for good.”
At the end of the games, Sandra was appointed Business Manager to John Furlong, CEO of the Vancouver Olympics, and together they crossed Canada sharing the stories and legacy of the 2010 Olympics. During this time, Sandra began asking politicians and senior civil servants why governments weren’t also leveraging procurement to improve social outcomes, only to be told that international trade agreements prevented governments from evaluating non-commercial criteria. It wasn’t until 2012, that the original text of the WTO Government Procurement Agreement (1994) was revised. Effective 2013, the evaluation of non-commercial criteria in government procurement was once again permitted, paving the way to advance the UK Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012.
1988 to 2013 represents a short 25-year anomaly in over 200 years of history during which public procurement was routinely leveraged to raise employment standards and achieve social policy objectives.
Moving procurement policy and practice beyond ‘do no harm to doing some good’
Unable to accept that Canada was signing trade agreements that prevented public money from being leveraged to improve lives, Sandra began researching the WTO Government Procurement Agreement and other international trade agreements. This led to Sandra being the catalyst, founder and first graduate of Canada’s first Executive MBA in Social Enterprise Leadership. Inspired by the original Art of The Possible in Public Procurement, an influential publication co-authored in 2016 by Stone King Partner, Julian Blake, and having graduated as Canada's first Social MBA, Sandra spoke extensively at conferences and went on to design Canada's first municipal Social Procurement policies and frameworks. Demonstration projects followed, as Sandra focused on supporting contracting authorities seeking to leverage procurement to improve social outcomes for people and shape places. In 2017, The Canadian Government invited Sandra to showcase her transformative work at the WTO in Geneva. At this, the first international WTO Symposium on Sustainable Public Procurement, Sandra presented on the importance of people, in a people, planet, profit approach to sustainability.
Public procurement: price-taker or market-shaper
In 2019, Sandra was offered an academic scholarship inviting her to return to the UK to continue her work at The University of Manchester Institute of Innovation Research. Here she researched the public management response to mandatory Social Value Procurement policies. Her ground-breaking research paper "Public Procurement: Price-Taker or Market-Shaper" won the 2023 Emerald Literati Award for outstanding contribution to the field.
Sandra currently advises the British Standards Institute Committee on Construction Procurement and supports Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham's Steering Committee on the Real Living Wage City Region. Sandra has joined Stone King to support UK local authorities in developing new ways of working, bringing her extensive experience from working with public buyer’s associations, municipal governments, and community benefit networks across Canada. She is a recognised voice in advocating for the VCSE sector to be placed at the heart of social value system intelligence, influencing the national dialogue at the Social Value Taskforce and contributing to Minister Gould’s Cabinet Office expert procurement roundtable on innovation.
Sandra and Julian have both contributed chapters to Vitalising Purpose – The Power of the Social Enterprise Difference in Public Services, a collection of essays showcasing innovative approaches re-shaping the design and delivery of public services. You can learn more about Stone King’s new consultancy services by registering for the next Stone King/E3M webinar taking place at 2pm on 27 March.
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