Electronic purchasing enables the Oise region General Council to increase its budget without resorting to taxation.

The Oise region General Council is the first French local authority to use electronic auctions to reduce its purchasing costs.

"I have been committed for four years to not increasing taxes for people in my region. We use reverse auctions to purchase supplies for the General Council. This enables me to optimise the use of taxpayers' money" says Jean-François Mancel, President of the Oise region General Council and member of Parliament.

The Oise region General Council pioneered public sector electronic purchasing, and has been using the services of SynerDeal, a company that specialises in consulting and eSourcing, for some time. In December 2000, it carried out the first on-line Call for Tenders by a local authority for the purchase of general supplies worth €30,000. At the time, the value of the purchase was limited by the French Public Contracts Code. The operation resulted in a 12% saving on the purchase cost.

Since then, the reform of the Public Contracts Code has removed the ceiling on the value of purchases, authorised reverse auctions for general supplies, and made the Call for Tenders procedure paperless. The auction held on 25 June 2002 related to office supplies worth €600,000.
The direct benefit for the Oise region General Council is a 35% saving. "eSourcing is simple and inexpensive and the returns can be huge", says Jean-François Mancel, "Public sector orders in France are worth approximately €120 billion, and the portion for general supplies comes to
€25 billion", he continues. "If you take the very reasonable assumption that you will save 10%, that would give a €2.5 billion reduction in expenditure. In these difficult times, rationalising public purchasing is salutary."

Didier Loth, Deputy Director General of Services for the Oise region General Council, says that he "uses SynerDeal's methodology to make public purchasing more professional. This is achieved by clearer definition of requirements, finding new suppliers, equalising the tenders and negotiation based on the net price and not on the catalogue discount". In the long run, the General Council may extend the use of reverse auctions to all of its spending on supplies, worth approximately €3 million (office furniture, IT equipment, fire extinguishers, etc.).