Page 156 - Procurement guidelines for smart sustainable cities - A U4SSC deliverable

Two screenshots, showing one stage of the iteration of the Digital Buying Guide. The left screenshot
shows a page titled “Guidelines”, with five steps. The screenshot on the right shows a page titled
“The guide”, with four headings: Plan, Inform the market, Evaluate and award, Manage delivery.

In parallel, UK GDS also worked with commissioned partners Development Gateway and Oxford
Insights, whose research, analysis and recommendations informed the Digital Buying Guide content
and case studies:

• Gender Equality and Social Inclusion in ICT Procurement: Discovery Report

• Resilience by eDesign: Digital Emergency Procurement

In July 2020, the Digital Buying Guide was externally audited for accessibility, and it is fully compliant
to “AA” standard with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.1.

The UK GDS Global Digital Marketplace Programme team’s work with Development Gateway and
Oxford Insights included creating indicator framworks for emergency procurement, and gender
equality and social inclusion in public procurement. These indicators can be used to assess maturity
and define incremental actions to take for improvement, and are provided at the end of these
Guidelines.

Additional user needs have emerged during research and testing. To meet these needs, UK GDS
has a prioritized roadmap to develop new features, including:

• community elements – for officials around the world to connect, share experiences and better
practices, and learn from each other;

142 Procurement guidelines for smart sustainable cities | May 2023