The department will shortly provide details of a new strategy, including a ‘stretching target’, intended to ensure that buying processes are more friendly to small firms, a minister has indicated
Government’s digital centre is soon to release an “action plan” intended to help boost its use of small local players in its procurement.
According to digital economy minister Baroness Liz Lloyd, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology is working on a strategy intended to make procurement more friendly to SMEs. This will include specific objectives for how much or what percentage of the department’s spend might be spent with smaller outfits, the minister suggested.
“DSIT will shortly be publishing a stretching target and action plan for our procurement spending with small and medium enterprises, most of which will be UK-based,” she said.
Lloyd’s comments were made in response to a written parliamentary question from crossbench peer Baroness Beeban Kidron, who asked “what proportion of the spending of the DSIT is allocated to UK-headquartered firms, and what proportion of its spending is allocated towards US-headquartered firms”.
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While a precise figure was not provided for procurement spending, in addition to outlining the upcoming SME plan, Lloyd noted that “most US firms operating in the UK do so via UK subsidiaries and therefore have UK registered addresses in our payments system”.
But DSIT’s spending on products and services for its own use is dwarfed by the research and development funding awarded through the department – which is expected to total almost £14bn in the current financial year.
The digital economy minister said: “DSIT’s largest channel of support to businesses is delivered through UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). UKRI will deliver £38.6bn of R&D investment over the next four years, including £7bn to support innovative company growth, the majority of which we expect will go towards UK-headquartered firms. DSIT and UKRI categorise investments by the location of where activity is performed in the UK, not company ownership. The department does not hold data in the format requested on whether a recipient of funding or wider spending is a UK or US-headquartered firm.”
