Procurement Reform Continues To Assit Scottish Business
A new programme agreed by the Government's Public Procurement Advisory Group will target better guidance and assistance for SMEs to make it easier to access to government contracts.
Other measures include the ongoing simplification of public procurement processes, better guidance for buyers and suppliers and easier access to low value contracts.
Enterprise Minister Jim Mather said:
"With spending on goods and services of around eight billion pounds per year, public procurement has a huge economic impact. We have been listening very carefully to the issues raised by business about public procurement and have now agreed new measures for further development.
"These measures directly address the issues raised by business, such as the simplification and standardisation of procurement processes, enhanced assistance for businesses in pursuing public procurement opportunities and new guidance to public bodies on how to reflect economic impact in procurement strategies.
"This builds on our recent commitments such as the introduction of a national database of supplier information to allow suppliers to enter their data once in a single place, and moves to ensure that all sub-contractors providing goods and services to Scottish Government are paid within 30 days. Taken together these additional, practical measures are another step to help increase sustainable economic growth."
For full news story please go to: http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/31625