Cabinet Office team says it wants to learn more about what technology local government and broader public sector is buying
The team behind the Digital Marketplace is beginning a campaign to attract more buyers from local government and other parts of the public sector, beginning with an effort to discover what technology they are buying.
It has outlined the plan in a blogpost that highlights the fact that, although the Digital Marketplace – government’s online buying point for digital services run within the Cabinet Office – is used predominantly by central government, it is available to all of the public sector.
It says the team wants to learn more about how buyers want to collaborate, manage their procurement better together or reuse and learn from each other.
This is prompting a two-month effort to speak to organisations to find out what technology and digital services they are buying, whether they are running up against any barriers to using the Digital Marketplace, and to create a plan to support local government and other organisations in its use.
In addition, the Government Digital Service is creating links between the registers of local authorities and schools and companies who can supply the public sector. The blog says this will help to improve the quality of data on which organisations are buying what from where.
“Organisations need to be able to quickly bring in the right technology and capability to build and integrate these new systems,” it says. “We want to find out how the Digital Marketplace can better support councils who are buying, integrating and supporting these new technologies.”
The blog also highlights the fact that 91% of the suppliers on the Digital Marketplace are small or medium sized companies and 72% are located outside London.
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