Peadar Tóibín
Question:10. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the number of complaints he has received regarding the new eTenders website; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3059/13]
View answerWednesday, 23 January 2013
Questions (10, 13, 29, 37, 40)
Pearse Doherty
Question:13. Deputy Pearse Doherty asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the way the user experience element of the new eTenders website differs from the previous website; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3061/13]
View answer
Aengus Ó Snodaigh
Question:29. Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the name and address of the companies involved in preparing and running the new eTenders website; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3062/13]
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Jonathan O'Brien
Question:37. Deputy Jonathan O'Brien asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will provide an update in the Governments new eTenders website; the cost involved in preparing and managing the new site; the level of consultation that took place with interested stakeholders in advance of the new site being rolled out; the level of briefing that the Government has carried out to inform interested parties on the way the new site operates; if he will detail any problems that the new site has experienced; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3058/13]
View answerPearse Doherty
Question:40. Deputy Pearse Doherty asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he is planning to hold any future briefing sessions for interested parties regarding using the new eTenders website; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3060/13]
View answerWritten answers
I propose to take Questions Nos. 10, 13, 29, 37 and 40 together.
The Government website www.etenders.gov.ie is a fully managed electronic tendering system that meets Ireland’s requirements in relation to the European Union’s requirements to meet the EU target for achievement of 100% capability for electronic tendering.
This website is the official Government website for public tenders for goods, services and works. It serves as a repository for notices above EU thresholds and which must be advertised in the Official Journal of the European Union. In accordance with policy guidelines from my Department contracting authorities are also obliged to publish all tender notices for goods and services with a value greater than €25,000 on the eTender website. In 2012, there were 6,439 notices published on this site.
It was necessary in 2011 to go to the market for a replacement for the old eTendering system as the contract with the original service provider was coming to an end.
The tender for the new service followed an in depth market analysis by a cross-agency steering group, including representatives from the HSE and Departments of Finance and Justice. Research for the specification also included presentations of systems by some of the leading service providers in the market place.
The new site, as well as publishing contract notices has a wide range of additional functionality that in effect will allow other aspects of the procurement process to be completed electronically, including assessment, awarding and contract management. This additional functionality is improving and generating efficiencies for both the public and private sectors.
Following an EU wide tendering process, during which no Irish company submitted a tender, the contract to provide the service was awarded to a new service provider, a Swedish company EU Supply Holding AB, Arbetargatan 33, 112 45 Stockholm,Sweden. The cost of the new system is €677,459 over the five-year life of the contract. This works out at €33,873 per quarter over the lifetime of the contract, which is a considerable saving on the €57,690, which was paid to the previous service provider - for the previous service - in the last quarter of 2012.
Prior to launching the new site on the 12 of November 2012, apart from detailed user guides and briefing of their representative bodies, registered Suppliers were also informed about the proposed change of system at various Meet the Buyer events and other seminars. Training on the system was offered to all public sector Buyers before the new system went live and over 1,200 buyers availed of these opportunities. These training opportunities are ongoing. The service provider also provides personal support to the approximate 80,000 registered users of this site through a Helpdesk facility.
The new system went live on the 12 of November 2012. Even allowing for the trebling of the server capacity for the initial days following the launch, the volume of users accessing the system (10,000 users signed in that day where there would normally be a maximum daily average of 500 users) caused a delay in the server response times. Some incorrect server settings were also detected that day. These access and response issues were resolved that day and have not arisen since.
Separately users to the national portal informed the NPS during the week of 12 November of claims that they had received unsolicited marketing emails from the previous operator of the service, marketing a new service. This caused widespread confusion among public sector Buyers and Suppliers and resulted in a large number of calls of complaint to the Helpdesk. The NPS is in discussions with the Office of the Data Protection Commission and is aware that the previous operator has issued an apology to some users of the old eTenders website for using their contact details for this purpose.
Most of the complaints since the launch of the new site relate to the confusion caused by the previous service provider who had issued user names and password for their new Mytenders system. Many users tried to access eTenders using these usernames and passwords, but obviously could not gain access, leading to a lot of angry calls to the Helpdesk. By the end of the second week after going live, and after the confusion caused by Mytenders had been resolved, Helpdesk calls were down to less than 250 routine calls per day.
Data migration issues from the previous operator to the new operator of the eTender website also created problems for Suppliers to receive alerts within their area of business about new tenders published from Monday 12 November.
In relation to live tenders that transferred from the old system to the new system, over the weekend of 10 November, some data migration issues arose and were resolved within a few days.
The National Procurement Service communicated with all registered Suppliers and Buyers, in the days following the launch of the new site, advising them of the solutions to the issues that arose, apologised for the early problems and acknowledged the inconvenience arising.