The Scottish Government is bringing procurement into the ’21st century’ with a new supply chain management platform which is helping overcome inefficient and slow bureaucratic processes for public sector buyers.
Supply25, developed through the Scottish Government’s CivTech programme, aims to reduce barriers for suppliers – especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), by digitising procurement processes.
The new platform will help public sector organisations and suppliers move away from a mix of spreadsheets, emails and one off questionnaires, creating a ‘fragmented and inconsistent process’.
Lee Rutherford, Sam Ernstzen and Mark McKenny in the Scottish Government’s Digital Directorate outlined the potential for the new platform in a blog post this week.
The authors said: “Across Scotland, the public sector navigates hundreds of thousands of procurements every year. These range from quick, routine purchases to major, highly complex projects, and the private sector faces a similarly broad and demanding landscape.
“It’s vital these procurements are handled consistently, efficiently and securely. Traditional procurement assurance methods can be inefficient and slow creating huge amounts of work for the buying teams as well as barriers for the suppliers – especially Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs).
“Supply chain management is one of the most important digital risk areas, but assessing it properly has long been a challenge. Organisations have often relied on a mix of spreadsheets, emails and one off questionnaires, creating a fragmented and inconsistent process. For suppliers, this results in a confusing landscape of shifting expectations and repetitive form‑filling frequently starting from scratch even when tenders look almost identical.”
Start-up AR-SQ Ltd (now trading as Supply25) will bring ‘structure, security, and intelligence to public sector procurement by enabling organisations to assess suppliers in a consistent, collaborative and transparent way,’ the authors say.
According to the post, the platform will initially enable assessment of supplier cybersecurity and accessibility requirements. In time, data protection, finance and AI assurance requirements could be integrated onto the platform, which has been subjected to the highest cybersecurity standards, and ‘penetration tested’.
Stephen Kelly, ICT Manager, Transport Scotland, said: “The platform itself is impressive and is one of the best examples I have seen of making complex information accessible and easy to understand. I have also been taken by how collegiate and responsive Supply 25 have been. It is clear they absolutely value customer input, and are committed to making the most bespoke tool they possibly can.”
