Amor Group believes changes in Public Sector Procurement Practises can help deliver savings required
Leading business technology solutions provider Amor Group today commented on the efficiencies that can be achieved in public sector procurement procedures for ICT services, in the wake of the £83billion savings package and plans for public service reform announced by the Chancellor George Osborne.
The company, headquartered in Glasgow, provides business technology solutions, professional services and managed services to the energy, transport and public sectors and its clients include devolved and central Government departments and agencies, UK regulatory bodies, the NHS and local authorities.
Alastair O’Brien, Amor Group’s Public Sector Business Unit Director, said today: “Public service reform and reducing waste is a key part of the spending review and our customers, which include councils, the Government and the NHS, continually face challenges with increasingly constrained budgets and the need to manage changing initiatives. Procurement frameworks have been set up to take cost out of the process but in our experience, not all public sector organisations are utilising them.
“For example, the Buying Solutions framework is a national service with 1,500 approved suppliers providing 500,000 products and services, and organisations buying through this framework save £90,000 on average on the procurement process.
“Last year’s figures show that in ICT consultancy, central civil government seems to make best use of Buying Solutions (58%), but the uptake is particularly low in areas such as local government (3.5%) and just under a fifth (18%) of the overall public sector market used the framework.
“Millions of pounds could be saved through a increased consistency and standardisation, and utilisation of the frameworks set up to try to generate savings and efficiencies.” Mr O’Brien added that Amor Group expected to see a rise in aggregation as a consequence of the spending review.
“We advise organisations with a generic requirement to consider pooling demand with other bodies, in order to gain economies of scale, shared resources and operational benefits.
“As the effects of the cuts are felt and John Swinney announces his own budget for Scotland next month, we expect to see an increase in the power of aggregation.”
