The Glover Review

Small and medium sized companies that believe they have 'no chance of winning government contracts' are being urged to think again by Marc Schroder, Chief Executive of mhl support.

Mr Schroder made his remarks in the wake of the announcement, by Alastair Darling in his pre-budget report, of a new Internet portal that will list all government contracts worth £20k or more. The portal, which is designed to reduce some of the bureaucracy associated with tendering for local and central government contracts, will make it easier for smaller organisations to compete for business.

"The time-consuming red-tape that has accompanied competitive tendering is soon to be drastically reduced", Mr Schroder said. "When the tendering process becomes less onerous and information regarding forthcoming contracts is easier to access, more and more companies will be able to enter the tendering process with every confidence of winning, provided of course they are able to demonstrate their commitment to Quality Assurance."

The new portal is one of a series of recommendations of a review of procurement practise commissioned by the Treasury. The review was led by Anne Glover, a co-founder of venture capitalists Amadeus Partners.

Responding to the Review, a government source was quoted as saying "the proposed portal is something that we would see as being very useful going forward."

Mr Schroder said: "More than £170bn is spent by central and local government every year. Although there are no figures to show just how much of that money goes to smaller companies, the Glover Review has found that there are numerous barriers preventing them from competing effectively with their larger rivals.

"There will be issues of compliance to address", Mr. Schroder continued, "such as the establishment of Health and Safety, Environmental and Quality management systems and whereas those requirements may appear to be complicated and time-consuming, in reality they can be outsourced to companies like mhl support and delivered efficiently and cost-effectively."

With so much opportunity on the horizon, Mr. Schroder hopes that smaller businesses don’t discount themselves from winning new business merely by neglecting to "dot the Is and cross the Ts".

"In the current economic downturn failing to gear up for the future now could be considered as a serious error of judgement" he said, "particularly if the government adheres to its commitment to awarding 30% of contracts to SMEs."