News that Scotland’s public sector eCommerce service is to open itself up to Europe has piqued our interest. The Scottish Government’s P2P service is to be integrated with a pilot PEPPOL (Pan European Public Procurement Online) eOrdering solution under development by Scotland’s Amor Group and partner Elcom International. The PEPPOL pilot covers Healthcare, Public Administration and Education and involves NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde Consortium, the West Lothian Council, the Highland Council and University of Edinburgh. Amor already delivers P2P, which was set up in 2002, as a fully-managed shared service using eProcurement tools from Elcom under a £18.5m contract let in September 2011 (see here for more).
There’s not a lot of cross border public services work at the moment and the Scottish government is hoping that the PEPPOL capability will make it easier for Scottish businesses, particularly SMEs, to compete in the pan-European market, thereby contributing to growth in the Scottish economy. Of course, conversely, European firms should also find it easier to compete for Scottish public sector business, potentially opening the market up to greater competition. That’s the theory. Only time will tell whether public sector organisations have the confidence to procure goods and services on a cross-border basis in this way. We’d be surprised to see a rapid take-up: in Scotland a local presence has traditionally been important, at least in services sales; and we can foresee language hampering Scottish businesses in Europe. But the direction of travel – towards both e-procurement and increasing competition from international markets – is one that we expect to continue in both Scotland and the rest of the UK public sector market.