Technology for Reform
Public sector procurement has never been more important - in today's tough economic climate, procurement managers need to ensure that public purchasing delivers value for money and contributes to the Scottish economy.
The effective use of technology is at the heart of procurement reform. As well as enabling business to be conducted more simply, consistently and effectively, it plays a key strategic role in delivering and sustaining procurement benefits and best practices. Business is increasingly transacted through faster, more efficient electronic processes producing ever-more detailed information about procurement activity. The technology presents greater opportunities for procurement managers to influence business by streamlining and standardising procurement processes, delivering more effective contracts, monitoring purchasing activity and collaborating more effectively. Technology presents new challenges for everyone involved, but for procurement managers and teams, it opens up new opportunities for procurement to make an even greater impact for the Scottish economy.
The Scottish government has provided a comprehensive package of technology to assist public sector procurement teams. Taken together, Public Contracts Scotland, the Scottish Procurement Information Hub, the Best Practice Indicators and eProcurement Scotland form a comprehensive package of technology which will assist public sector procurement teams to engage in the reform process, strategically plan improvements and demonstrate progress, efficiency and best practice.
The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth, along with his colleagues on the Public Procurement Reform Board, expects to see public bodies use these technologies and actively seek to continuously improve their performance and share best practice with others. Updates on participation with and outputs from each of the projects are tabled at every Delivery Group and Reform Board meeting.
Details on how procurement teams can access and use the technologies are available at the following links: