31 May 2002
The Commons' Treasury select committee says the body, which was set up to modernise procurement practices in central government departments, should provide its expertise to health and military chiefs. At the moment these bodies manage their own procurement programmes, sometimes with mixed results.
In their report, the MPs say they have been given no clear explanation of why the NHS and MoD are excluded from the OGC's activities, 'except to say that these procurement processes are different'.
It goes on: 'We believe that in future both MoD and NHS procurement processes should be brought within the OGC's remit unless explicit reasons are given for particular dimensions of procurement being treated independently by the relevant government departments.'
The report concludes that the OGC, set up in April 2000, is on course to meet its target of saving taxpayers £1bn in procurement costs by the end of the 2002/03 financial year. In its first year of operation, Whitehall departments reported £433m in value-for-money improvements.
But it missed 'by a wide margin' the March 2001 deadline for getting departments to purchase 90% of low-value goods and services electronically. In addition, the completion dates for its e-procurement pilot projects slipped from August 2001 to this spring.
'OGC's future plans and targets in these areas should be based on a more realistic assessment of what is achievable, both by departments and the market,' the report says.
An OGC spokesman said: 'Experience has shown that this particular target was probably unrealistic within the original timescale. Not least because many departments did not have the infrastructure to support it, money for which was only made available under the 2000 Spending Review.'
The committee also expressed disappointment that a recommendation made by its predecessor – for performance information on public-private partnerships to be collated centrally – had not been acted on. It restated the need for such a facility to be set up.
Speaking after the report's publication, committee member Michael Fallon indicated that MPs would review the OGC again to ensure progress on modernising procurement systems was maintained.
'It is difficult always to distinguish between one-off gains and continuing savings,' he added.
PFmay2002
