An update on Procurement and KTP
Back in June 2006 Grŵp Gwalia Cyf joined forces with The University of Glamorgan to form a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) which enabled us to benefit from the resource of two students who worked on assigned projects within the organisation. One of the projects remit was to source and integrate an eProcurement system to enable us to benefit from substantial savings whilst benefiting from the added publicity and reputation of being a pathfinder organisation for a prestigious Welsh Assembly backed project.
In Wales, the KTP Programme is managed and part sponsored by the Welsh Assembly Government with the aim of utilising academic expertise alongside the actual implementation of best practice methods to help develop businesses. Gwalia’s partnership with the university proved a great success, with the result that Gwalia became the first Welsh Public Sector organisation to adopt all key elements of the Welsh Assembly Government’s sponsored eProcurement solution, ‘xchangewales’ - a ground breaking programme that allows all public sector organisations in Wales to source, tender, evaluate, order and pay for goods and services at a click of a button and allowed Gwalia to improve the processes used to buy goods and services, making the procedure more efficient and cost effective.
Since 2006, the projects introduced through the KTP scheme now form part of Gwalia’s Procurement remit, having influenced the way we do business and in 2009 Andrew Davies, Minister for Finance and Public Service Delivery in the Welsh Assembly Government paid a visit to the Gwalia offices in Swansea to see the new eProcurement system and website when it went live at www.gwaliaprocurement.com.
In January 2010, the Annual KTP Awards Ceremony took place at the Liberty Stadium in Swansea where the Gwalia Procurement team were proud to have been nominated for the ‘Welsh Award for Knowledge Transfer Partnerships’. They have also been nominated for the April 2010 Government Computing (CG) awards in the category for ‘Transformation’ which recognises radical change within the delivery and quality of services. It also highlights the fact that such changes have benefitted both Gwalia and its customers by clarifying the communications channels through which business is done.
The GC Awards 2010 will take place in April at a location to be confirmed.
To read more about Knowledge Transfer Partnerships, please visit www.ktponline.org.uk.
To read more about the GC Awards 2010, please visit www.guardian.co.uk/gcawards.
