Oral Answers to Questions

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wilson]

Obviously the Rotherham child sex abuse case is complex, and most of the responsibility for the matter lies within the Department for Education, but the hon. Lady makes a good point. It is important that we all learn lessons across Government, and the Cabinet Office is as keen as any other Department to do so.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

4. What recent steps he has taken to address barriers to small and medium-sized enterprises participating in Government procurement.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)]

Central Government spend with SMEs increased from £3 billion in 2009-10 to £4.5 billion in 2012-13. They benefited from a further £4 billion in indirect spend through the supply chain, so we are on track to deliver our ambition that 25% of Government’s direct and indirect spend should be with SMEs. In addition, we are implementing further changes to procurement rules that will benefit small businesses.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

The majority of local authorities are still not using the Government’s Contracts Finder, resulting in local SMEs losing out on opportunities. What are Ministers doing to ensure that more local authorities submit their procurement opportunities to the website?

[Mr Maude]

I draw the hon. Lady’s attention to the fact that a new and greatly improved version of Contracts Finder will be launched early in the new year. It is a massive opportunity for local authorities to procure better and cheaper, but also to be able to support local businesses. There are now more than 1,000 suppliers on our G-Cloud framework, 87% of which are SMEs, a number of them based in Bolton. They are all now able to provide services directly to public sector purchasers, which helps growth and jobs as well as providing better value for the taxpayer.