Following on from our earlier post – we take a look at the Liberal Democrat Manifesto and how procurement features in their spending cut plans in comparison to the other two main parties.

Government defence projects come under scrutiny by the Liberal Democrats as part of their plans to save £15 billion year-on-year. Nick Clegg pledged to revisit all major spending projects through the strategic spending defence review ensuring that procurement costs were kept low.

 IT procurement projects would also come under scrutiny according to the manifesto with expensive technology options to be reconsidered with alternative approaches including open-source software and cloud computing.

The Liberal Democrats are also keen to adopt policies that would encourage the procurement of green products including fair trade and sustainable products building on their planned investment of green energy, technology, housing and transport.

Post your views on how you think each party’s policies will impact upon procurement and watch this space for our post-election blogs and reactions.

In the run up to what promises to be one of the most closely fought elections, we take a look at how the two main parties factor procurement into proposed spending cuts, tackling the UK deficit and their election policies. 

Conservative Manifesto: Procurement to drive innovation

The Conservative manifesto has declared that the way in which purchasing is managed and conducted will be the key to promoting enterprise and innovation. Some of the details include:

·         A pledge to allocate 25% of government procurement contracts to SME’s by reducing administrative costs relating to bids.

·         All government tender documents over £10,000 will be published on the Supply2gGov website

·         Large ICT contracts will be segmented into smaller contract components providing opportunities for SME’s

·         Visibility of government contracts and projects over £25,000 for purchasing of all goods and services

·         Visibility of all project details that are awarded £25,000 or more of EU funds

·         Reform of the MOD’s procurement processes to reduce running costs by 25%

Labour Manifesto: Procurement to prioritise local people

The UK Labour party has pledged priority to local people from future public procurement, as part of their move to tackle immigration issues. They will also be focusing on government spending and overhauling department structures; some of the details include:

·         Reducing back-office and property running costs

·         Abolishing unnecessary quangos

·         Reducing costs on consultancy, marketing and lower priority spend areas

·         Reforming defence spending by reducing civilian staff , cutting costs  at headquarter offices and reducing consultancy and travel costs

·         Improving efficiency throughout police service procurement

In either case there’s no surprise that procurement and spending feature very strongly in this year’s general election issues.

We’ll be looking at the Liberal Democrat manifesto in upcoming blogs as we approach Election Day on May 6^th.