Northern Ireland’s Central Procurement Directorate (CPD) has launched a new online tender system which will, it says, “improve efficiency for suppliers, by making it easier and faster to bid for government contracts.”
The CPD, part of the Department of Finance and Personnel, carries out procurements for other civil service departments and agencies. Other centres of procurement expertise in Northern Ireland, such as the Education Authority, NI Housing Executive, Translink and Transport NI, will soon move to the new eTendersNI system, and the CPD says that “a number of other public sector bodies are also finalising plans” to adopt it.
Launching the portal, finance minister Arlene Foster MLA said that eTendersNI “will be the principal source of information for public sector tender opportunities in Northern Ireland, with more organisations using it to advertise their tenders than the previous portal, eSourcing NI. She added that the portal will increase the visibility of forthcoming projects, helping suppliers to better prepare for new tenders.
“Through the Executive’s commitment to public sector reform my department is looking for better ways for suppliers to engage, simpler ways of doing business and encouraging the market to offer its best solutions to the public sector,” she said.
Run by the Luxembourg-based IT business European Dynamics, the portal enables suppliers to register and complete profile certificates, after which they can receive notifications about relevant tenders and enter procurement processes. The system also permits successful bidders to advertise for sub-contractors, and to upload product catalogues.
Pictured: eTendersNI | licensed under Open Government Licence v3.0
