Press Releases
Latest eAuction cuts IT costs by 36 per cent for councils
10 October 2006
Nine local authorities in North West England saved nearly £3 million in the sixth IT hardware eAuction run by the Office of Government Commerce (OGC).
The councils auctioned IT hardware requirements worth £8 million at pre-auction benchmarked prices, achieving a price of £5.09 million: an average saving of 36%. This brings the total saved by public sector organisations in OGC eAuctions to nearly £16 million since the first eAuction in September 2005.
With ten separate lots, ranging from laptops, desktops and PDAs to Unix servers, this eAuction featured the widest range of products covered so far. It is also the first where OGC have worked through a local project manager, and the first to use OGC's BravoSolution eAuction tool.
The Office of Government Commerce provided specifications, document templates, process expertise and the eAuction platform. Neil Hind, procurement programme manager from the North West Centre of Excellence, co-ordinated the participation from councils.
Any public sector organisation interested in making cash savings on IT procurement by participating in an OGC eAuction should contact Chris Chettle at the OGC, and for local authorities, the Director of their nearest Regional Centre of Excellence.
Ian Cosh, Assistant Director of Finance at Lancashire County Council, commented: "We're really pleased with the savings that the eAuction has delivered. We've set ourselves challenging targets in terms of efficiency savings and improving value for money and this eAuction will help us to deliver those targets."
Chris Chettle, OGC eAuction manager, said: "We're delighted with the success of our sixth IT hardware eAuction. eAuctions are a great way for local authorities to collaborate together and deliver extremely competitive IT deals, as they aggregate demand to achieve great prices and avoid time-consuming multiple OJEU procedures."
Colin Cram, Director of the North West Centre of Excellence, commented: "This is just one of 30 planned collaborative eAuctions being run by the North West Centre to help councils make real savings. Although eAuctions require a lot of careful planning, the potential benefits are massive."
Contacts:
Office of Government Commerce
Alexandra Ranson: 020 7271 2696
Martin Day: 020 7271 1318
Chris Chettle: 07785 310 636
North West Centre of Excellence
Colin Cram: 0161 342 4079
Neil Hind: 0870 7442 940
National Procurement Programme
Seth Brook: 07976 109 192
Notes to Editors
1) The nine councils participating in the eAuction were:
- Burnley District Council
- Bury Metropolitan Borough Council
- Hyndburn District Council
- Lancashire County Council
- Ribble Valley District Council
- Rossendale District Council
- St Helens Metropolitan Borough Council
- Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council
- Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council
2) The Office of Government Commerce is an independent office of the Treasury, which acts as a catalyst in the public sector to achieve efficiency, value for money, and successful delivery of Government projects. One of its key priorities is supporting the public sector's target of £21.5 billion annual efficiency gains by 2008, of which local authorities are due to deliver £6.5 billion.
The Office of Government Commerce and the National Procurement Programme work in partnership to provide leadership in the local authority procurement arena: encouraging and supporting local authorities in collaborative better buying initiatives which deliver hard cash savings, through the nine Regional Centres of Excellence.
3) Regional Centres of Excellence, such as the North West Centre, are the change agents for local government efficiency. Uniquely placed to bring councils together, they are run by local government, bring additional capacity and are results focused. They are supporting councils to secure millions of pounds in efficiencies that are being re-invested in better front-line services.
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