Government procurement arm looks to beef up tender system

The government’s central procurement body is looking to deploy a new e-sourcing system to improve its tendering process. The Government Procurement Service (GPS) is looking for two hosted services to support the issuing of tender notices through the Official Journal of the European Union, which acts as a register for all large public sector tenders, along with the document management and e-auction features needed to support the tender process.The GPS is also looking to develop a spend analysis platform to enable it to track tenders placed through OJEU, which will take data from disparate government systems in an effort to get the best value from deals.Contracts for the systems – both of which are expected to be for hosted services – will last for three years, with an option to extend for one additional year. The GPS is part of the Office of Government Commerce, which is now controlled by the Cabinet Office’s Efficiency Reform Group. The contract for the new procurement systems will likely be one of the first to be signed after the government’s new IT advisor, Liam Maxwell starts work within the ERG. Maxwell has been charged with improving the government’s record on IT delivery and is known to be an advocate of open source technology.

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