Government procurement set to go online
The Office of Government Commerce, the recently created focus for the multi-billion pound public sector buying function, intends to establish online shopping over a secure intranet.
This is the latest step in efforts to get control over departmental spending through better planning and using bulk purchasing power to achieve better deals.
Treasury procurement director Brian Rigby summed up the problem this way: "We know what we spend, but we donıt know what we buy."
The plan is to make online shopping required for all departments, unless they can demonstrate to the OGC that they can do better elsewhere. The goal is to cut spending by £1bn.
Elliott Chase
