1 March 2011 | Lindsay Clark
A UK public sector agency is calling on the councils and
fire authorities in its area to give smaller businesses easier access to local
government work.
Improvement andEfficiency South East (IESE),
which brings together public bodies to help them become more efficient, has
developed a standard pre-qualification questionnaire (PQQ) to make it easier,
faster and cheaper for small firms to bid for council contracts.
The organisation believes the standard PQQ could help small
and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) get a fairer chance of winning some of the
south east’s £4.5 billion of council deals.
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has joined the IESE
in calling for the 74 local authorities and nine fire authorities in the region
to adopt the standard questionnaire to avoid suppliers entering the same
information every time they bid.
Deb Sen, procurement spokesperson for the FSB, said:
“Despite progress that has been made opening up the public sector marketplace
in recent years, small firms are still put off bidding due to excessive
paperwork. Small firms provide councils with better value for money, better
quality of service and greater innovation in the delivery of public sector
contracts. The adoption of a common PQQ, completed once, has long been a goal
of the FSB and we are pleased to lend our support to this campaign.”
Councillor Paul Bettison, chairman of IESE and leader of
Bracknell Forest Council, said: “SMEs play a vital role in driving economic
growth but they tell us that they are forced to spend a disproportionate amount
of time bidding for public sector contracts. This is the last thing they need
at a difficult time. A standard PQQ is an important step to dramatically
streamline the process for SMEs by cutting unnecessary red tape and I urge all
councils in the south east to see how they can implement it locally.”
The PQQ will be available through the South East Business Portal,
a website run by IESE which is designed to improve council procurement
processes and make public sector contracts more transparent.
