EU Public Procurement Learning Lab

Brussels:14 November 2005

SMEs Pilot project in the UK

Peter Bennett

(Office of Government Commerce: London)

Creating Diverse and Creating Diverse and Competitive Supplier Competitive Supplier

MarketsMarkets • To meet the recommendations in the

Better Regulation Task Force (BRTF) / Small Business Council (SBC) report - Government: Supporter and Customer? – published in May 2003, which examines the difficulties that small and medium sized enterprises(SMEs) face when trying to do business with the public sector.

BRTF ProgrammeBRTF Programme

West Midlands SME Procurement pilot projectWest Midlands SME Procurement pilot project

500 SMEs involved in the Pilot

73 opportunities advertised on a regional tender opportunity web portal

14% of the SMEs had successfully tendered for government contracts at the start of the pilot. Of contracts awarded through the portal, as at June 2004, 26% were won by pilot SMEs

Over 300 SME and Procurer ‘How to Tender’ training places filled

9 large suppliers agreed to open up opportunities in the supply chain

Development of a standard simplified pre-qualification questionnaire based on a self-certification model.

• To work with the Small Business Service SBS to support the development and introduction of a national opportunities web portal

• Training Project – involving training for both SMEs and equality businesses and government procurement officials

• Opening up Supply Chains Project – increasing transparency of supply chains to provide access to more opportunities for SMEs, and “equality” businesses

• Pre-qualification Document (PQQ) – development and implementation of a common, simplified pre-qualification questionnaire based on a self-certification model.

BRTF – National Implementation ProgrammeBRTF – National Implementation Programme