The contracts are valid until year 2000. A number of pilots are running at present. Current discussions are about broader and nationwide co-operation in areas such as standardisation for, providing information on, and selling the concept of EC between government and industry. There is a general policy objective to make government simpler to do business with. It does see a continued place for EDI where appropriate principally in dealing with small numbers of suppliers doing large volumes of business with government.
Policy is to utilise market solutions, wherever possible, in preference to building bespoke systems.
A number of studies of cross government functions have been launched in support of this review - notable amongst these studies is a comprehensive study of public procurement strategy. The study group, led by the Treasury, is due to report in June 1998. The US government makes heavy use of credit cards for public procurement in preference to, and as a replacement for, more traditional government financial systems and controls. At present the scheme seems to work at a cost centre level with credit limits on monthly spends which can be for small amounts or millions of dollars. The US government have found that dealing with numbers of electronic catalogues is inefficient and have an initiative to integrate a number of such catalogues whilst maintaining supplier independence.