To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what steps his Department has taken to promote the uptake of collaborative procurement strategies within schools, as recommended in HM Treasury's May 2009 review, Operational Efficiency Programme: collaborative procurement. (279715)

The Educational Procurement Centre (EPC) within the Department for Children Schools and Families is working with The Pro5 Group of Professional Buying Organisations (PBOs) to develop and commission collaborative arrangements for schools to access a wide range of goods and services.

OPEN—the Online Procurement for Educational Needs system is the Department's eProcurement tool for schools that has been developed with and for schools to aid them in procuring their goods and services in one convenient location should they wish to use it. We are working with public sector buying organisations such as Pro5 to utilise OPEN to meet their needs so that it can display collaborative catalogues and contracts.

EPC is working with departmental procurers, other government Departments and PBOs to analyse and assess opportunities for collaborative procurement in the schools sector.

The Department has also worked with the Office of Government Commerce to develop guidance in collaborative sourcing for schools, i.e. the new energy guide.