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Ian Gray, chief executive of the Technology Strategy Board, outlines the work of small businesses in government procurement.
How the Technology Strategy Board, through the SBRI scheme, is helping small businesses develop innovative solutions linked to government procurement
As chief executive of the Technology Strategy Board, I am in the privileged position of being able to see at first hand some of the exciting new innovations being developed by UK business. Through SBRI, the Small Business Research Initiative, I have the added bonus of seeing some of those innovative ideas being applied to solve challenges faced by the public sector.
To give an example, the Department of Health was looking for a way to diagnose asthma in babies, or others who cannot blow into a conventional spirometer. The department worked with the Technology Strategy Board to set up an SBRI competition, which was spotted by Exhalation Technology Ltd, a small company already working on an asthma test for racehorses.
The firm realised they had an answer which could potentially be redeveloped for use in humans and, having made a successful bid to the SBRI competition, is now developing that technology with the potential of future public sector contracts in sight.
The UK has a wealth of dynamic innovators with the potential to supply novel answers to problems which government bodies need to solve. The problem is that such innovators – often small companies – can be hard to find; they often don't have easy access to government procurement contracts; and they may need support in bringing their ideas to final product stage before they can enter a conventional procurement process.
SBRI aims to unlock the potential of these companies and at the same time help government meet its needs more effectively. Since April 2009, over 425 contracts to develop innovative solutions have been awarded to SMEs, with a total value of more than £28m. In many cases these are firms who have not previously worked with the public sector and would have found conventional procurement processes difficult.
The SBRI approach has been taken up by 13 government departments and other public sector organisations, resulting in 29 competitions addressing a range of public sector challenges such as combating MRSA, reducing the theft of mobile phones and retrofitting houses to meet future CO2 and energy use targets.
The coalition agreement sets out the aim to 'promote small business procurement, in particular by introducing an aspiration that 25 per cent of government contracts should be awarded to small and medium-sized businesses…' Through SBRI we are starting to make a move in the right direction, helping businesses grow and develop new products and services and at the same time providing innovative solutions to problems faced by the public sector, delivering more efficient and effective results.
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