Thames Valley Police Take the Lead with e-Procurement

Thames Valley Police Take the Lead with e-Procurement

London, 03 October 2006 – @UK PLC has further widened its customer base within public sector buying organisations by being selected to provide an eProcurement and e-invoicing system to Thames Valley Police (TVP).

TVP is the largest non-metropolitan police force in the country, covering 2,200 square miles of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire and serving a population of 2.2 million people. The TVP area is policed by around 4,140 police officers, 350 Special Constables, 370 volunteers and 2,860 other police staff. The total spent by TVP on goods and services is over £40m p.a.

The @UK Supplier Management System (SMS) will enhance existing TVP procurement systems by providing a mechanism to send electronic purchase orders to, and receive electronic invoices from all their suppliers, no matter what their size or existing electronic trading capability. Stage one of the project will be creating a link between the @UK supplier network and TVP back office systems. This builds on a wide base of experience by @UK in linking to similar financial systems in other areas of the public service. Over the next 3 months it is intended that the @UK PLC system will then be rolled out to the majority of the force’s 1,500 suppliers.

Barbara Hill, Procurement Manager at TVP said “We believe the @UK PLC system offers TVP an ideal infrastructure on which to build our future procurement strategy. It provides both ourselves and our suppliers the ability to achieve real efficiency and process savings, eliminating time and the potential for error right through the supply chain. The @UK PLC e-invoicing capability for all our suppliers is especially important part of this. It establishes an ideal mechanism for us to achieve huge efficiencies in our backend processes. It is also a way for suppliers to reduce their costs significantly in dealing with us, with the ability to both parties to share those benefits.”

Simon Lipscomb, National Sales Manager of @UK PLC said “We are delighted to have been chosen by TVP as their eProcurement provider. Working in partnership with an organisation with such a well-deserved reputation for procurement excellence, this is an exciting step forwards for us. It also widens our organisational experience into another area of the public service with tremendous potential for eProcurement. Once we begin to e-enable TVP suppliers then they are instantly available to be used by every other force in the country, one of the big advantages of our national supplier network. We greatly look forward to working on the TVP project over the coming months.”

About @UK PLC
@UK PLC creates the ability for companies to simultaneously sell online to consumers, businesses and the public sector. The @UK network directly links the financial systems of bodies such as local authorities, hospitals, schools and large corporations to all their suppliers. This allows buying and selling to take place with no paperwork and no chance of transposition errors-achieving major savings throughout the supply chain. The network accommodates thousands of suppliers of every size, from huge multinationals such as RS Components, Office Depot and Dell to “one man band” window cleaners and plumbers- and is growing daily. Even the smallest suppliers can now both accept electronic orders and more importantly raise electronic invoices for all their customers. @UK PLC also helps people set up businesses by offering all the necessary start-up solutions such as incorporation, company secretary services, filing annual returns, etc.
@UK PLC is based at Aldermaston, Berkshire and the company floated on AIM in Dec 2005.