Pan-European Public Procurement Online (PEPPOL)
May 7-8, 2014 | NSAI at the Dublin Headquarters hosted a meeting Open PEPPOL Transport Infrastructure and Post-Award coordinating communities.
NSAI, through its ICT Standards Consultative Committee, is participating in European and international standardization work within the broad scope of information and communications technology. The various specialist areas in which participation is active in Ireland through industry and other experts are in turn devolved to subcommittees of the main committee.
In February 2011 a new SC 12 – eInvoicing – was established to mirror work in the area facilitating such electronic exchange between government bodies and businesses, and following the work of the National Multi-Stakeholder Forum on Electronic Invoicing, established under European Commission Decision C(2010) 8467 final of 2 December 2010 by the National Procurement Service in Ireland. Subsequently a pilot demonstration, entailing both infrastructure and core-invoice format, was established through a number of companies’ engagement with the project co-ordinator, the Institute of Technology, Sligo; and more recent reorganization is underway to provide key functions to the Departments of Public Enterprise and of Finance for operation of the Forum.
The European standardization work has come mainly through CEN Workshops, and more recently, a newly established Project Committee on eInvoicing within the eBusiness sector.
The Pan-European Public Procurement Online PEPPOL project has been concerned with use and implementation of appropriate specifications in demonstration, and in particular in 2012 OpenPEPPOL was established to enable European businesses easily to deal, through electronic means, with any European public sector buyers in their procurement processes, thereby increasing opportunities for greater competition for government contracts and providing better value for tax payers’ money. NSAI's ICTSCC/SC 12 expanded its title and scope to encompass the whole area of eProcurement in 2013, and more recently a further Directive 2014/55/EU of 16 April 2014 on electronic invoicing in public procurement has been introduced.
OpenPEPPOL held a meeting of its Transport Infrastructure and Post-Award coordinating communities in NSAI on May 7-8, 2014. The first day was devoted to a common session encompassing strategy having regard to the e-SENS project and Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) work programme, followed by sequential sessions including such matters as specification implementation and delivery architecture and pilot opportunities. The second day was devoted to a workshop on the subject of interoperability prerequisites and verification.
Pictured: Dr. Ian Cowan, NSAI (l.), and Mr. Edmund Gray, IT Sligo (r.), with PEPPOL joint Conveners at hosted meeting.
Further details are available from Dr. Ian Cowan | NSAI Standards | (01) 807 3876
