E-Auctions

Programme Activity

OGC Announces e-Auction Strategy to save £270m

The Office of Government Commerce's (OGC's) Centre for e-Auctions today published its Forward Plan for e-Auctions, which aims to save the public sector up to £270m by the end of 2011/12. It sets out a rolling schedule of e-auctions for the next 24 months, which will influence over £900m of public sector spend.

In addition, the OGC has established an online facility dedicated to e-auctions, which will include on-line forums and access to best practice guidance. The site will be continually developed and enhanced based on user feedback and requirement, and will include regular updates on upcoming e-auctions.

Commenting on the Plan, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Ian Pearson said:
"With the publication of this Forward Plan, I am calling on all public sector procurers to use developing technology in the collaborative procurement arena and to make full use of forthcoming e-auctions.
"As we continue to build the economic recovery, it is vital that we can take every opportunity for reducing costs to the public purse. E-auctions deliver real, cash savings and should be used much more frequently."

The Forward Plan for e-Auctions gives public sector procurers a clear line of sight of forthcoming e-auctions. The OGC is encouraging public sector organisations to engage with the collaborative procurement programme by taking up the opportunities in this expanded pipeline, and by doing so, make significant savings from a variety of procurement categories.

The Plan builds on OGC's previous e-auction successes where savings are frequently in excess of 10% and have been reliably measured at up to 50% against pre-auction prices. The OGC's rolling programme of IT e-auctions that began in 2005 has completed 11 e-auctions to date, delivered 31% in savings based on pre-auction prices and enabled over 600 public sector organisations to participate. Many of these organisations are continuing to work together on the delivery of savings by sharing insights in broader areas of IT, and looking at procuring other items collaboratively.

Nigel Smith, Chief Executive of the OGC said:
"We have achieved solid and sustainable savings from e-auctions. The new Centre for e-Auctions is building on this work and is providing a widespread push to get e-auctions in regular use across all categories of spend.
"The Centre for e-Auctions team has the right expertise and know-how to give e-auction participants every confidence that their procurements will deliver similar levels of savings and high quality goods and services."

To access the Forward Plan for e-Auctions visit the following link: http://www.ogceauctioncentre.co.uk/home/how-we-work-with-you/future-eauctions/

To access the e-auction pilot website visit the following link:http://www.ogceauctioncentre.co.uk/