2006
Boosting buying power means real savings for schools
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19 October 2006
PA Consulting Group, the leading management, systems and technology consulting firm that is responsible for delivering the Zanzibar Managed Service, announced today that schools will soon have access to a new e-procurement and e-marketplace platform that will simplify and substantially improve their collaborative buying potential, a ‘Marketplace for Schools’.
PA Consulting Group has been working closely with The Centre for Procurement Performance (CPP) to examine existing e-procurement options available to schools and develop an online marketplace that is easy to use and offers great savings potential for all. Following the Gershon review, the education system has been set an efficiency target of £1.4bn to be achieved by March 2008. More efficient procurement practices and effective spending in schools will play a major part in achieving these savings.
Beginning in early 2007, a pilot group of schools across England will have access to the new system to use in their day to day procurement activities. The Marketplace for Schools will allow users to easily and securely access their local contracts and e-catalogues for goods and services, as well as provide them access to regional and national contracts that could offer increased value for money.
The Marketplace for Schools builds on PA’s wealth of experience and success seen from its delivery of the national e-Procurement Managed Service, Zanzibar. Zanzibar is already delivering real life savings for the organisations that have gone live with the service since its launch in February of this year.
PA Consulting Group is delivering the Marketplace for Schools through a wholly owned subsidiary, PA Shared Services Limited.
Bruce Tindale, Chief Executive Officer, PA Consulting Group, said:
“We are delighted that the efficiency savings delivered by Zanzibar will now be realised within schools across the country. This project represents an exciting opportunity for PA Consulting Group, in close conjunction with the CPP, to assist schools in leveraging the tools and experience needed to boost their buying power. Marketplace for Schools will continue our strong track record for working with the public sector and delivering substantial process efficiencies.”
Veera Johnson, PA's lead consultant on the Schools Marketplace project and member of PA's Management Group, added:
”The Marketplace for Schools projects represents a major step towards delivering efficiencies for schools across the country. It is an exciting project and a great product, which offers more than just a marketplace. The Schools Marketplace Service includes an eProcurement hub and a range of management information components that will help participating organisations make better value for money decisions now and in the future. Further, it offers the opportunity for all schools to have easy and local access to collaborative contracts that offer attractive pricing arrangements.”
E-procurement has real and significant benefits for schools. It can provide transactional efficiency for users in a safe and secure environment and an opportunity for making savings through better access to collaborative arrangements. Schools purchasers will have access to better information to help them make an informed decision that is right for their needs.
The Marketplace for Schools will provide schools with a low-cost e-procurement and supplier content management system that will deliver efficiencies through better procurement processes. In addition, the system will hold extensive information, buying data and intelligence, enabling better value for money procurement decisions to be made in future.
For more information, please contact Heather Smith at the PA Consulting Group press office:Tel: 020 7312 4975 (office) or 07710 294 845 (mobile)
Notes to editors
For further information about Zanzibar go to : www.zanzibaronline.gov.uk
For further information about the CPP go to: www.dfes.gov.uk/cpp
For further information about the Schools Marketplace please email: eprocurement.schools@dfes.gsi.gov.uk
About PA Consulting Group
PA Consulting Group is a leading management, systems and technology consulting firm. Operating worldwide in more than 35 countries, PA draws on the knowledge and experience of 3,000 people, whose skills extend from the initial generation of ideas, insights and solutions all the way through to detailed implementation. This benefits-driven approach is founded on our strength in innovation, our responsiveness to our clients’ needs, and our unyielding focus on delivery. All of our work and support is based on deep sector insight and expertise, and we work across the private and public sectors, with particular strengths in financial services, energy, life sciences and healthcare, government and public services, manufacturing and telecommunications.
www.paconsulting.com
About PA Shared Services Limited (PASSL)
PA Shared Services Limited (PASSL) is a wholly owned subsidiary within PA Consulting Group. PASSL is the delivery vehicle for Zanzibar and builds on PA's strong track record in procurement and delivering e-government solutions. The Zanzibar Managed Service is an innovative web-enabled Purchase to Pay (P2P) system and eMarketplace available to all public sector organisations in England, Wales and Northern Ireland under OGCbuying solutions Framework Agreement and is a key part of the Government’s procurement strategy.
About Zanzibar
Zanzibar offers a comprehensive end-to-end automated procurement process with the flexibility to accommodate future supplier and buyer adoption, no matter what services, tools or processes they already have. The system is based on commercial 'off the shelf' components, and provides a single point of access for buyers and suppliers. It will host common and individual supplier catalogues and 'punch out' via the Web to suppliers that already have procurement-enabled transactional Web sites.
The system is available for public sector bodies to subscribe to, and they will nominate suppliers that they want to trade with on Zanzibar. Suppliers will then be contacted and provided with further information.
Public sector organisations interested in Zanzibar should email zanzibar@pasharedservices.com
For further information about Zanzibar please go to www.zanzibaronline.gov.uk
About the Centre for Procurement Performance
The CPP is a unit set up by the Department for Education and Skills to work across the whole of the education, skills and children and families system, to promote more effective procurement. Sitting within the new Commercial Directorate, the CPP will now focus on delivering the Department's efficiency agenda across education sector through a series of externally focused delivery programmes. The addition of DfES Procurement to the Commercial Directorate will give greater flexibility in delivering the Department's ambitious objectives.
For further information about the CPP go to: www.dfes.gov.uk/cpp
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