London, 03 October 2006 - @UK PLC has further widened its customer base within public sector buying organisations by being selected to provide an eProcurement and e-invoicing system to Thames Valley Police (TVP).

TVP is the largest non-metropolitan police force in the country, covering 2,200 square miles of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire and serving a population of 2.2 million people. The TVP area is policed by around 4,140 police officers, 350 Special Constables, 370 volunteers and 2,860 other police staff. The total spent by TVP on goods and services is over £40m p.a.

The @UK Supplier Management System (SMS) will enhance existing TVP procurement systems by providing a mechanism to send electronic purchase orders to, and receive electronic invoices from all their suppliers, no matter what their size or existing electronic trading capability. Stage one of the project will be creating a link between the @UK supplier network and TVP back office systems. This builds on a wide base of experience by @UK in linking to similar financial systems in other areas of the public service. Over the next 3 months it is intended that the @UK PLC system will then be rolled out to the majority of the force’s 1,500 suppliers.

Barbara Hill, Procurement Manager at TVP said “We believe the @UK PLC system offers TVP an ideal infrastructure on which to build our future procurement strategy. It provides both ourselves and our suppliers the ability to achieve real efficiency and process savings, eliminating time and the potential for error right through the supply chain. The @UK PLC e-invoicing capability for all our suppliers is especially important part of this. It establishes an ideal mechanism for us to achieve huge efficiencies in our backend processes. It is also a way for suppliers to reduce their costs significantly in dealing with us, with the ability to both parties to share those benefits.”