Whitehall opens up to suppliers

An XML-enabled online marketplace is the next stage in the government's plan to open up public sector spending to a greater range of suppliers.

The proposal to develop a single access point for government contracts is being developed by Whitehall buying agency the Office of Government Commerce.

It involves two projects:

An 'ehub' called Zanzibar that will enable suppliers to bid for contracts, submit invoices and receive payment using the same online system. But only existing government suppliers will be registered to use it.

The National Opportunities Portal (NOP), a one-stop-shop for contracts worth under £100,000 to give new suppliers an introduction to the market. Once a deal is won and supplied through the NOP, the vendor will be recommended for registration on Zanzibar.

Both systems are scheduled to launch in spring 2005, after a purchasing process starting at the end of this month.

The aim is to make the government marketplace more accessible, says the OGC.

'Suppliers should find process savings that make this an attractive way of doing business with the public sector, particularly for smaller companies facing the complexity and cost of dealing with the government with no guarantee of winning any contracts,' said an OGC spokesman.

'We are not saying small is good and big is bad, we're trying to make the marketplace attractive to all,' he said.

The OGC is keen to open up the government IT sector, traditionally seen as dominated by large companies.

'Small and medium-sized enterprises bring flexibility and dynamism and that benefits both the taxpayer and the suppliers themselves,' said the spokesman.

The plan fits into the work OGC has done to establish a common XML-based language to allow communication between suppliers and government departments regardless of what systems they are using,' he said.

'The common language work and Zanzibar go hand in glove - with the common language established we can now put the ehub together.'

Without a common communication system suppliers would need lots of different systems to be able to interact with government departments and agencies, he says.