Cumbria County Council and five other local district councils have joined an e-procurement exchange to extend their use of share services.
The deal comes as a result of an Effective Procurement in Cumbria (EPiC) initiative which has reviewed the cost of procurement, analysed supplier bases and identified common goods and suppliers used by the County Council and district councils.
Cumbria and Barrow-in-Furness Borough Council, Carlisle City Council, Copeland Borough Council, Allerdale Borough Council and South Lakeland District Council have now adopted an e-procurement and electronic trading environment called IDeA:marketplace from provider, EGS.
Alan Rutcliffe, head of strategic and commercial procurement at Cumbria County Council and chair of the EPiC project board said: "In 2006 we did a lot of work reviewing how we can streamline our procurement strategy for greater shared efficiency."
All six Councils went live in April 2007 and are currently integrating with their back end systems to various degrees. The next step is for put transactions through the EGS IDeA:marketplace, which is expected early next year.
Rutcliffe said that, as a first step, the authorities are using a 'Quick Start' version of the EGS exchange to enable supplier catalogues to be uploaded and to provide all participating councils access to full contract prices.
"This allows us to identify areas of common spend where joint contracts will deliver cost savings on the purchase of commodities, help us work to identify better, existing agreements or negotiate new agreements on behalf of the Cumbrian partners," he said.
"As a county council, we have 85 per cent of the local authority expenditure in Cumbria and want to make the best possible use of that purchasing power. The EGS exchange will not only help us to reduce duplication and harness greater aggregated purchasing power, but it also enables us to implement best practice procurement with regards to selecting and working with our suppliers."
