Suppliers raise concerns over missing functionality in G-Cloud 13 launch
The Crown Commercial Service (CCS) has announced that the supplier transparency function removed from the recently launched G-Cloud 13 framework will be temporarily removed and restored by mid-December. The much-delayed flagship cloud procurement framework of the government went live two months later than planned on 9 November 2022. However, members of the public sector IT buyer and supplier community raised complaints about the services’ visibility after it went live.
The removal of the supplier transparency function meant that non-buyers could no longer view the services available to purchase, and the framework’s suppliers could not view each other’s listings. Chris Farthing, CEO of public sector procurement consultancy Advice Cloud, was one of the complainants. However, CCS has stated that the supplier transparency functionality will be reinstated in due course.
The digital platform the framework runs on, the Contract Award Service (CAS), is still under development, and the G-Cloud 13 has gone live on a minimal viable product version of the CAS, which has several pieces of functionality missing, including the supplier transparency feature. The government procurement body is aiming to have the transparency functionality reinstated by mid-December.
