What is Procurement Gateway?
The Gateway is designed to support the Government’s objective of delivering a simpler and more transparent procurement process.
It fills a gap between contract award and publication of KPI performance metrics on the Central Digital Platform.
It provides Contracting Authorities and Suppliers with a simple, affordable, secure, auditable mechanism for reporting, reviewing and agreeing KPI metrics and measures, in particular in respect of those contracts caught by s52 of the Act.
It is an innovative facilitation tool to enhance and simplify contract management.
Our vision:
Transforming public sector contract management, with practical, affordable and secure solutions, designed for improving the quality of delivery.
Facilitate management and monitoring of KPIs in public contracts through tools that are compliant, save time, are easy to use, transparent and secure.
Why are we launching Procurement Gateway?
We recognise that Contracting Authorities have limited resources, and the requirements of the Act will add pressure to those resources;
Both public and private sectors recognise the value of measuring contract performance but are concerned about how this will be managed in practice. There is particular risk of reputational harm to Suppliers if the system is not operated effectively;
Effective contract management (including through monitoring of KPIs) can help deliver value for money;
Contract management software is available but can be expensive and therefore potentially inaccessible particularly to Contracting Authorities and SMEs;
The Gateway provides a simple, affordable tool to address these issues.
What will Gateway do?
Provide an automated two-way communication tool for Contracting Authorities and Suppliers to exchange information about contract KPIs;
Ensure that contract and KPI data published on the Central Digital Platform has been reviewed (and where possible, agreed) by contracting parties;
Ensure that information shared through Gateway is retained and auditable, providing a clear track record of what has been shared, and agreed;
Provide reminders, and alerts (including ahead of reporting deadlines, where emails have bounced back, where KPI data has been submitted / reviewed).
What are key benefits for Gateway users?
Free to use for Contracting Authorities;
Affordable fee structure to facilitate use by SMEs;
Trusted, reliable tool for two-way communication with all exchanges stored and traceable;
Alerts to ensure deadlines are not missed and that users are aware of information being uploaded and of email bounce-backs;
Transparent tool for updating, managing and reviewing KPI data;
Ability to prepare outputs that can be uploaded seamlessly to the Central Digital Platform;
Linkages with key publicly available data such as Companies House;
Flexible, simple system that can be used for any public contract and any KPIs, not only publishable ones.