Southend-on-Sea borough council hopes to save £1m over
three years with ane-Procurementsystem.
The local authority is implementing
IDeA
marketplace, developed by e-government Solutions (eGS), as a
purchase to pay system.
The system will be used to electronically purchase all goods and
services needed by the council. Invoices will also be paid
automatically, through an interface with the council's finance
system.
Councils are increasingly using systems such as Marketplace to
increase the efficiency of their purchasing. It is one example
of how local government is using IT to
achieve more of a client-focus and improve processes.
David Levy, head of procurement at Southend, said the new system
would get the council better value for money.
He said, "We currently have no single consistent means of
ordering goods and services, which makes it difficult to control
expenditure or ensure we are getting maximum value for money from
our suppliers.
"The new system will simplify the ordering and payment process
for both the council and our suppliers."
The council aims to complete the rollout of Marketplace by March
next year..
Levy said, "We also hope to gain the ability to harness better
pricing by aggregating spend on similar commodities in different
areas of the council. This spend would previously have been
difficult to identify."
Levy said that increasing numbers of councils using the same
system meant even greater efficiency savings are possible in the
future.
He said, "Marketplace is used by most Essex local authorities so
the system will facilitate collaboration and reduce unnecessary
duplication of resources, which is what can happen when lots of
public sector buyers are all tendering for the same goods and
services."
The IDeA marketplace system is a Java-based public procurement
application, which demonstrates a working
Public
Key Infrastructure (PKI)-secured system and includes an
XML-based supplier network technology.
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