With the new Government Procurement Service up and running more changes to central government procurement were announced by Mr. Francis Maude, Cabinet Office Secretary. to as a major shake-up of central government procurement.
The plans aim to put over £50bn worth of public works and services tenders online and will thus facilitate and accelerate the process to bid for government work, especially for smaller companies who often lose out when pitching for public projects. Government departments will now be instructed to break contracts into bite-sized chunks to make it easier for small and medium-sized enterprises to get involved.
Most of the work to go online initially will relate to IT and facilities management, with building and infrastructure projects going online from next April. According to the Cabinet Office Secretary, who is to ask Brussels to simplify EU rules on government procurement, the changes will mean it will be 40 per cent faster to do business with Whitehall.
According to Maude, UK public sector spends a huge amount of money in buying in goods and services from outside, and it is not doing it properly. The UK currently follows the European law extremely literally, which entails very legalistic processes, and with the big contracts councils have Mr. Maude believes the current situation is not particularly benefiting UK businesses.
Most of the work to go online initially will relate to IT and facilities management, with building and infrastructure projects going online from next April. According to the Cabinet Office Secretary, who is to ask Brussels to simplify EU rules on government procurement, the changes will mean it will be 40 per cent faster to do business with Whitehall.
According to Maude, UK public sector spends a huge amount of money in buying in goods and services from outside, and it is not doing it properly. The UK currently follows the European law extremely literally, which entails very legalistic processes, and with the big contracts councils have Mr. Maude believes the current situation is not particularly benefiting UK businesses.
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