IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The Scottish Executive announced that Glasgow City Council had joined the project on 9 September 2005. This brings the number of public sector bodies signed up stands to 56.

eProcurement Scotland provides a common platform for the public sector to procure a wide range of goods and services.

He wants to see departments make better progress in developing properly professional procurement.

The Government has launched a global survey into public sector procurement practices to help inform European eGovernment strategies.

The results will be released at the EU Ministerial eGovernment Conference in November. The event, being held in Manchester, is one of the key events of the UK's Presidency of the European Union.

Local authorities are missing out on £1.1bn in cost savings by not adopting electronic procurement systems, according to a study commissioned by the National E-procurement Project.

Hosted by the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham and run in partnership with Ealing Council the e-auction was designed to use the combined buying power of London’s 32 boroughs in a transparent way to slash the cost of buying goods like stationery, paper and electronic office and school supplies.

It has appointed @UK PLC, the UK’s largest online business marketplace, to enable its suppliers to trade online with the council.

The @UK PLC network allows organisations to conduct all of their purchasing through an online network of suppliers, allowing requests, quotes, orders, payments and invoices all to be transmitted online.

Online travel booking for civil servants, a purchasing network with high street retailers and an electronic contract management system are all to be showcased at the government's procurement exhibition later this month, it was announced on 14 June 2005.

The team decided that there was insufficient resource both to start implementing e-procurement and at the same time produce a formal strategy document for presentation to chief officers and members.

The Scottish Executive has disclosed plans to set up a central procurement facility to help local authorities in Scotland with their service transformation programmes.

The work will be one of the key priorities over the coming year to take forward its Customer First strategy, it said on 5 July.

eProcurement Scotland (ePS), a fully managed service for the public sector to buy goods and services online, dealt with 45 per cent more transactions last year, compared with 2007, speeding up business processes and saving public money, Finance Secretary John Swinney said.

The value of transactions carried out using the "eProcurement Scotland" system was £1.7 billion in 2007, five times the previous year's total of £321 million. It amounted to almost a quarter of all public sector procurement, which is worth about £8 billion a year.

The Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission (SCCRC) is joining an information systems shared services agreement with Skills Development Scotland and Scottish Enterprise, according to publicservice.co.uk.

It is the latest in a line of shared procurement deals by organisations in the public sector , as budget pressures are forcing cost-saving measures.

Millions could be saved by Welsh councils following a successful first eAuction pilot by two local authorities in the Principality.

Swansea and Neath Port Talbot councils secured potential savings of £650,000, equivalent to nine per cent of expenditure for the supply of tinned and dried foods for a contract worth around £1.3 million per year.