Frequently Asked Programme Questions
What are the contractual arrangements for buying organisations joining the service?
A seven-year Principal Agreement was concluded between the Scottish Ministers and Capgemini in November 2001. (The technology providers, Elcom, are subcontracted to Capgemini.) To join the service, individual buying organisations sign a Customer Agreement, which is a tripartite agreement between the Scottish Ministers, Capgemini and the buying organisation.
How is the service funded?
The core service is paid for by charges to buying organisations who pay a joining fee followed by an annual subscription. There are no transaction charges of any kind. Buying organisations should contact the eProcurement Scotl@nd team to discuss charges. Most importantly, there are no joining fees, subscription charges or transaction charges to suppliers.
What are the additional service options and how much do they cost?
In addition to the "core service", buying organisations have the option of contracting for a range of optional services, including:
- Process re-engineering
- Change management
- Legacy systems integration
- Bespoke marketing and communications
- Bespoke training
- Customised training/test environment
- Dynamic Documents (an enhanced type of electronic form)
- Provision of a digital certification service to meet enhanced security requirements
- The cost of any options will vary depending on the requirements of individual organisations. The options can be explored during the Scope & Readiness Assessment to see if, when and how they can be taken forward.
- Suppliers may also choose to commission catalogue creation or management software tools from a service provider of their choice.
Is there any scope for an organisation to negotiate a different deal, for example by choosing which services it takes, or to take account of an organisation being very small or having close associations with another organisation?
The core service has been designed to meet all the basic requirements for eProcurement. Each organisation can have a service which is tailored to its own specific needs though additional costs may apply. There may be some scope for setting individual terms for very small (or large) organisations. As a general guide, a group of organisations may be treated as a single organisation if they have common procurement processes and share a financial system. The Scope and Readiness Assessment can help to clarify the position for any particular organisation.
Do individual buying organisations need to go through European Commission procedures before electing to join the service?
No. The procurement process which has been undertaken envisaged that the eProcurement Scotl@nd service could be used by any organisation in the Scottish public sector.
Which bodies will be covered by the Scottish Executive's own implementation of the service?
For the purposes of the service, implementation in the Scottish Executive will include those bodies which (a) use the Scottish Executive Accounting System (SEAS) as their principal finance system; (b) predominantly use the central contracts which are arranged by the Scottish Procurement Directorate (SPD); and (c) have their procurement conducted for them by SPD or under the supervision of SPD in terms of delegated purchasing authority.
My organisation is in the health sector and uses Scottish Healthcare Supplies. What is happening with their catalogue?
As part of the Principal Agreement between the Scottish Ministers and Capgemini, all the contracts negotiated by Scottish Healthcare Supplies are to be loaded into PECOS for access by NHS Scotland organisations.
My organisation has (or is considering buying) a finance system which includes a "procurement module". Couldn't we use that instead of the eProcurement Scotl@nd service?
No. Ordering functionality in a finance system is not the same thing as eProcurement.
- We are not aware of any finance system which can or is likely to address the full eprocurement needs of an organisation.
- eProcurement Scotl@nd is a national eProcurement service for public sector organisations in Scotland, addressing all the eprocurement needs of an organisation. The service promotes good procurement and finance practice, best value and smarter working by providing state of the art IT and consultancy services that enable web-based electronic 'purchase to pay' and electronic tendering. The service also provides a common public sector approach to supplier e-enablment (including tools and access to a shared public sector supplier adoption database), and a supporting information web site for all the latest news, information and relevant experience that you need to make e-procurement a success.
- Pecos is one of several tools provided as part of the service which enables a buying organisation to implement and conduct eProcurement successfully. Other tools include supplier ae-enablement, eTendering, eAuction, catalogue management and management reporting systems and consultancy support.
- As well as realising the benefits of adopting a common technology, the eProcurement Scotl@nd approach embraces the benefits of a commonly provided service e.g. access to other contracts, benchmarking, continual product and service developments, etc.
- One of the key resource intensive tasks in implementing eProcurement is bringing suppliers on-board and working with them to optimise benefits. The eProcurement Scotl@nd approach spreads this load; subscribing members share the benefits of the work of fellow subscribers.
- In addition, one of the aims of eProcurement Scotl@nd is to avoid putting suppliers to the expense of dealing with a variety of procurement systems across the Scottish public sector.
NHS Scotland has launched a Best Procurement Implementation (BPI) programme. How does this affect eProcurement Scotland?
NHS Scotland has instigated the BPI programme designed to drive out improvements in the NHS Scotland supply chain in the areas of logistics, strategic sourcing and process and technology. The eProcurement Scotl@nd service is included in this programme as the eProcurement service of choice for NHS Scotland and will be rolled out through the BPI programme to all NHS Scotland organisations.
I have heard that implementation in the Health sector is being funded by top-slicing? How will this work and which costs will be covered?
As part of the roll out of the ePS Service under the NHS BPI Programme, the cost of joining the service is funded by the Scottish Executive Health Department (SEHD). Additionally SEHD via the NHS BPI Programme has centrally funded Capgemini to deliver a national strategic sourcing strategy and legacy finance system integration software under the umbrella of the ePS principal agreement with Capgemini. There are annual subscription and local costs which the implementing NHS Scotland organisations will be responsible for.
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