Date Published: July 16, 2013 by Stephen Frost

 

The UK public sector's procurement process is the most expensive in the European Union. This is according to new research published recently from the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR).

 

The research commissioned by Gatewit, found that the UK public sector procurement process is the highest in the European Union, at an average total cost of £45,200 compared to an EU average cost of £23,900 - around 90% more expensive.

 

It also reveals that the UK is the fourth most expensive country in the EU to attract bids from a potential supplier. The average cost to a UK public authority attracting each bid from a potential supplier is £1260 compared to an EU average of £800 - making the UK's public sector procurement process 58% more expensive than its EU counterparts. Only Denmark, Norway and Italy record higher costs of attracting bids.

 

The report also identifies that the average UK public sector procurement process was one of the longest in Europe - 53 days longer than the EU average and 20 days longer than the Italian process average (the next longest).

 

These results lead us to question:-

~what makes the UK public sector procurement processes so expensive to conduct?

~why does the UK not fare well in the length of time it takes to conduct a public sector procurement process?

 

Evidently, high cost of procuring can dissuade both large and small businesses from submitting tenders, leading to reduced competition and choice. The public authority suffers not least in respect to their budgets. The CBR report demonstrates that the UK public sector procurement processes have a number of weaknesses and it will be interesting to see how these issues are addressed over the coming years.