procurement policy

We are fully committed to government policy on procurement as set out in various documents from HM Treasury and, since April 2000, Office for Government Commerce (OGC).

This has two basic objectives:

To achieve continuing improvement in value for money based on whole life cost and quality
To enhance the competitiveness of suppliers through the development of procurement systems and practices

We are also committed to developing the use of e-procurement as a way of improving efficiency. As an initial step we have introduced the Government Procurement Card into a limited area of the department for low value purchases and are extending this to cover travel services.