NCC launches scheme to accredit IT suppliers

The National Computing Centre has launched a scheme to accredit IT suppliers, making it easier for small business customers to identify good suppliers. 

Accredit UK will measure suppliers against an agreed set of standards, and register qualifying organisations. Unusually, the scheme has drawn up rules for purchasers as well as suppliers. 

The Accredit UK Purchasers Code of Conduct lays down guidelines for IT buyers to help them specify what they want and brief their supplier better.

It also lays down guidelines for ensuring that interaction and communication for both sides is in place to encourage a partnership approach.

The scheme is specifically aimed at increasing confidence among small businesses which, according to the NCC, want to invest in IT but balk at spending money with unknown suppliers.

The new scheme will incorporate existing IT standards, and the NCC is working with local government IT specifiers to ensure the standard meets buying criteria so that more small IT suppliers can participate in local authority IT bids.

Currently small suppliers are put off from bidding for local authority contracts because of the complexity of pre-qualification questionnaires, according to the NCC.

"We are not just creating a standard, we are creating something that will revolutionise the IT industry," said Vaughan Shayler, NCC project director for Accredit UK. "We want to make sure that what we create meets everyone's needs."

The scheme will rate suppliers' competence to ensure they have appropriately qualified people, robust business processes and a track record in the area of business for which they are bidding.

Accredit UK was unveiled at an Advantage West Midlands conference in Birmingham and will be officially launched in early 2007.

A two-year pilot phase will be run in the Midlands area with the intention of rolling out a UK-wide programme in 2009.