Public services brought to book

EDS? decision last week to dump Tplc ? its government supplies catalogue (GCat) subcontractor ? was an awkward moment for IT advisors at the CCTA. While Tplc, an ICL subsidiary, considers its legal position and reseller Computacenter gleefully takes over its role as fulfilment house, the agency has been gearing up to launch son of GCat ? the public services catalogue (SCat).

Where GCat allows the public sector to bypass EU procurement rules and buy equipment such as PCs off the page, SCat will allow government departments to do the same for services.

But it will have one key difference. The CCTA plans to keep overall management of the new catalogue in-house. Unlike GCat, which is run by EDS, SCat will have no prime contractor, to avoid possible accusations of bias. So while CCTA will promote the catalogue and answer customers? questions, the service providers will put their own proposals together, handling invoicing, and so on.

This means the agency will be likely to cop more flak should SCat run into problems. Yet it is pushing ahead with SCat, and has narrowed the initial 118 service providers down to 36 covering eight categories. It plans to award contracts for inclusion in the catalogue next month, and go live with SCat in December.

The emergence of a new catalogue should come as no surprise. The agency claims GCat saves government, local councils and the NHS around #5m a year, and slashes tendering costs by 5%.

The discounted catalogue contains a pledge that it will never be knowingly undersold. This has no doubt helped it to secure more than 300 customers since April 1996.

This year the CCTA expects to handle about #100m-worth of business, and hopes to double this figure by 2001, yet it is still a fraction of the billions spent on IT in the public sector.

Use of GCat is voluntary, and many potential public sector customers still merely compare the catalogue deals with other options. But the phased roll-out means that although government departments and councils have had 18 months to benefit from the catalogue, it is early days for health and education. Police interest is also increasing.

Plans are already afoot to make GCat ? and ultimately SCat ? even more accessible and open to electronic commerce. The CCTA wants to expand the CD-ROM-based electronic ordering system, which currently contains 27,000 products from 300 suppliers, to encompass electronic invoicing and payment. So far, CCTA reveals, customers have been cautious about electronic ordering, because of concern about the security of ecommerce.

But all in all, the CCTA is satisfied with GCat?s first efforts in the world of public sector procurement, especially considering it is still in the ?ratcheting up? phase.

So EDS? Tplc trouble ?alleged customer complaints about service standards ? was something of a fly in the ointment. No surprise then that the CCTA backed EDS? switch to Computacenter.

Doug Reeve, CCTA SCat product manager, said: ?We are a bit disappointed that it has been necessary to change subcontractor, but we are now looking for GCat to go from strength to strength.?

These sentiments were echoed by EDS, which has a three-year contract, extendable to five. David Courtley, the outsourcing giant?s government group managing director, said: ?We are relatively pleased with take-up thus far.?

Computacenter only took over day-to-day running of GCat on 8 September, but early signs suggest it is off to a good start. Customers were not only surprised to be able to place orders the same day, but to receive goods the next.

However, the CSSA?s Tony Lewis is less optimistic about SCat?s prospects. ?As Argos would testify, the supply of products lends itself to cataloguing. It is more difficult to catalogue services.

?Take consultancies, for example ? one man?s senior consultant is another?s junior programmer. You have to get some model of consistency before you can make value judgements on what you are buying. Our membership probably has still to be convinced.?