The government ministries have thus followed the suggestion of Mr Maxime Verhagen, the Minister for Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation, to prepare themselves to start using TenderNed as soon as they are able.
An initiative of Mr Verhagen's Ministry, TenderNed is the public eProcurement system for services, supplies and works in the Netherlands. Serving as a virtual market place between public bodies and companies, it assists contracting authorities and economic operators through the whole online procurement process, from the prior information notice to the award of the contract. Currently, TenderNed's use is voluntary for public authorities, but the new Public Procurement Act will make the publication of their tender notices in it mandatory for central public bodies.
Commenting on the ministries' move to TenderNed, Mr Siep Eilander, the Head of Purchasing at the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations and the person in charge of the government-wide procurement affairs, said: "Moving to TenderNed is worth it. It offers online support in addition to a uniform process. This increases the quality of tenders. For me, all executive departments which are over one hundred and other government organisations, should use TenderNed as soon as possible. This is an important step for public procurement which, in accordance with the procurement rules to be published, will enable businesses to access all tenders in one place and provide them with more opportunities to compete."
The Dutch Government is signing thousands of contracts yearly that represent €60 billion in total. TenderNed is intended to make government procurement opportunities more transparent for businesses. Moreover, it will reduce paperwork since as from mid-2012, companies will be able to submit their tenders electronically and store frequently used data in TenderNed. This will thus save economic operators both time and money.
The use of TenderNed has been growing steadily, and new tender notices are published every week. Around mid-December 2011, over 180 public procurement procedures had been registered in TenderNed. Local government entities such as municipalities, cities (Rotterdam, Leiden) and provinces (Overijssel) as well as government agencies (Buildings Agency, Social Security Agency) have been using TenderNed too.
Background information:
On 31 March 2011, draft amendments to the current Public Procurement Act were submitted to the Dutch House of Representatives (Tweede Kamer, in Dutch). The revision of the Public Procurement Act is aimed at providing a clear and uniform framework for public procurement and to make it compulsory for public authorities to publish their contract notices in TenderNed.
Further information:
- Original news article - TenderNed (in Dutch)
- Related ePractice case - TenderNed, the Dutch system for e-procurement
- Related ePractice case - PIANOo-desk, the interactive community on public procurement
- Related ePractice news article - NL: Online guide launched to facilitate the public eTender process
- Background information - ePractice eGovernment Factsheet for The Netherlands