Millions of businesses nationwide will soon have direct access to local and central government business opportunities, thanks to a new national web portal the Small Business Service (SBS) and Office of Government Commerce (OGC) jointly announced today. The SBS launched the open competitive tendering process for the provision of the national web portal service although no date was announced for the launch of the portal.

All businesses will benefit, but the SBS and OGC believe the portal will quickly become popular with the 4 million small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in the UK, which make up around 99% of all UK companies. The planned launch of the national portal follows one of the recommendations of the 2003 Better Regulation Task Force/Small Business Council report on reducing barriers facing any business wishing to become involved in public procurement.

It will build upon lessons that the OGC and SBS learned from the SME procurement pilots in the West Midlands and Haringey, and will greatly ease the process of bidding for potential public tender opportunities whilst allowing public sector buyers to get ready access to a very broad range of potential suppliers. OGC will additionally offer suppliers access to simplified pre-qualification documentation, develop 'buyer awareness' training for government purchasers and help the SBS in the development of training and advice.

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Paul Boateng said: "I am delighted that the potential advantages identified by the West Midlands and Haringey pilots have contributed to the process of breaking down the barriers facing SMEs when trying to do business with government. The practical help and advice that the pilots developed can now be rolled out nationally, proving that the pilots were not just a one-off project, but part of government's continued commitment to helping SMEs to access the public sector marketplace."

Small Business and Enterprise Minister Nigel Griffiths said: "I want to make sure that small firms of all types have access to a slice of the public sector procurement cake. By developing a national portal to bring together buyers and sellers we can cut the time and effort that small firms spend hunting for contracts while increasing the options available to public sector buyers, helping to ensure better value for money for the taxpayer."

The West Midlands pilot helped small local businesses in the following ways:

* A simple web portal was established for government buyers to advertise low value contracts; this made opportunities more accessible to SMEs.

* Training workshops on how to put a tender together and how to find opportunities were delivered free of charge to SMEs. To support this, training on the benefits of using SMEs was given to government buyers. Over 300 of the SME and buyer training places were filled during the pilots

* A simplified tender document was tested by several government departments in the West Midlands area, which successfully reduced the bureaucracy involved in the tender process. A standard pre-tender document has now been developed for use with the national portal.

* The project worked with 'prime contractors' in the area to encourage them to open up their supply chains to SMEs. Ten large suppliers in the region are now primed to open up sub-contract opportunities in the supply chain.