Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con)]

2. What steps his Department is taking to ensure that small and medium-sized enterprises are aware of opportunities to gain Government contracts.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

5. What steps his Department is taking to ensure that small and medium-sized enterprises are aware of opportunities to gain Government contracts.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Oliver Letwin)]

We have established Contracts Finder as a one-stop shop, which enables suppliers to find procurement opportunities, tender documents and contracts online and free of charge. We are also piloting a simple method, which I think is called a dynamic market, for suppliers to register online for public sector contracts below £100,000. That will enable small and medium-sized enterprises to compete at minimal cost alongside large suppliers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Bridgen]

SME information technology companies are reporting back from the Government tendering process that project aims and budgets remain unspecified and that forms are still the size of telephone directories. Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that those concerns will be taken on board, so that this Government can deliver real value from IT projects—something that the previous Government failed to do?

[Mr Letwin]

My hon. Friend has actively and aggressively pursued several Government Departments about these issues and I hope that he will continue to do so. He is absolutely right that too much of this still goes on. My right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office, who has taken the lead on the issue and deserves great credit for that, has not tried to keep the issue secret—on the contrary, he has tried to open it up.

We have introduced a “mystery shopper” scheme, which allows suppliers to challenge Government procurers when they see overly bureaucratic processes. I am delighted to be able to tell the House that during the first three months of the scheme, 23 cases of things such as huge telephone-book-sized contracts were investigated and 11 have led to immediate reductions in tedious bureaucracy. All the information about the scheme has been published on the Cabinet Office website.