Sequence, Wales' leading digital agency has been commissioned by the Welsh Development Agency to undertake the significant build of a pan Wales public sector eTendering platform.

This exciting development will see the Welsh public sector coming together to use a single, free, ubiquitous supplier sourcing and eTendering platform, as part of the National Procurement Website project.

In simplest terms, eTendering is the electronic posting of a purchasing requirement (an invitation to tender) by public sector buyers, with suppliers then having the ability to ‘post’ their response (tender submission) back to the buyer through a secure, resilient environment.

Value Wales (Procurement) in partnership with the WDA (Welsh Development Agency) joined forces in 2003 to launch www.sell2wales.co.uk, a powerful tool that matches suppliers to opportunities within the Welsh public sector. To date the project has been a huge success seeing over 10,000 companies register who have been exposed to more than £600 million worth of Welsh opportunities, and over £6 billion worth of European opportunities.

Daniel Jones, WDA Director of Strategy & communications, continues, "Sell2Wales and Buy4Wales are key tools to opening up government contracts to indigenous Welsh businesses, and adding the ability for suppliers to actually submit their tenders online is the next logical step". He concludes "Sequence have developed extensive public procurement experience over the last four years, and I’m looking forward to seeing them help in taking us to the next stage of open, e-enabled government",

The task of engaging all the different public sector bodies, from Local Government to Assembly Sponsored Public Bodies, Higher Education to Further Education, the NHS to the Emergency Services is a formidable task, but something that VW(P) felt could be achieved through the provision of a well thought out enterprise class e-Tendering system at no cost to the supplier or buyer.

Mike Melville, WPI, eBusiness Programme Manager comments "Given their involvement in the success of the Sell2Wales and Buy4Wales applications, Sequence were the logical choice to undertake this next phase of development".

Richard Baker, Sequence Managing Director states, "We’re absolutely delighted to have received this commission. It culminates over three years of work on the National Procurement Website, that has seen the project progress from a strategy, through to a working system that actually makes a different to the Welsh economy".

The eTendering facility will be available on Sell2Wales early 2006.