The Irish Government's attempts to reform its procurement activities are "disappointing" and it has severely underestimated the amount it can hope to save from online purchasing, according to the country's Information Society Commission (ISC). The Government had made "conservative" estimates of the amount it could save from e-procurement, and had failed to invest enough in procurement reform, says the ISC in its latest report.
Under its National e-Procurement Strategy the Government had said it could save €175m, but according to the ISC's calculations, a €1bn figure should be possible.
The commission, set up as an independent board established by the Irish Prime Minister's department to advise on IT and e-government issues, suggested that the Government had not considered the full range of evidence in drawing up its strategy.
It said that "having studied international surveys and best practice models" it is now "confident" that the Government's strategy was conservative "and could be increased by as much as six fold".
Clodagh O'Donnell, Chair of the ISC e-Business Working Group was critical of the Government's efforts so far.
"Progress to date on procurement reform is disappointing and has clearly been inhibited by budgetary constraints. Annual funding allocations for 2002 -2003 have been in the region of €5m- a little over one third of the annual investment of up to €14m envisaged by the strategy".
O'Donnell said that the public sector's poor performance in the area was holding back e-business.
"Ireland is losing ground in terms of e-business adoption with a recent… report putting Ireland seventh out of nine countries case studied. The public procurement sector is a strong mechanism to ensure healthy adoption of e-Business in our economy. The Government needs to lead in terms of its interaction with businesses in order to promote an overall e-Business environment".
The report calls on the Government to:
- devote adequate resources to its procurement strategy
- enhance its electronic tenders web service
- examine different models for public procurement including PPP
- support small businesses in its procurement efforts
"As a purchaser, Government spends around €9 billion annually on goods and services. This report is timely in capturing clearly the significant savings on this amount that modern procurement practices can deliver for Government - savings that can in turn be harnessed to deliver better quality public services to the citizen."
Quelle: Kablenet
