The government said the switch to the online giant would save it about £100,000 a year, but the director of one local firm which has lost out has called it ‘short-sighted’ and another has already laid off a member of staff following the loss of a core part of its business.
They warned that the move could end up costing the States more as it needed staff to handle large deliveries.
Two local companies are understood to have tendered for the business, both of which have worked with the States for decades supplying everything from pencils to office furniture.
They were shocked when they learned that not only had they been unsuccessful, but the States had opted to award the contract to Amazon Business.
‘Every pound spent in the island stays in the island,’ said a director of one of the local firms.
‘I think it’s a very short-sighted decision.’
Both wondered how the States was going to deal with what are likely to be large deliveries to States’ sites, from the Prison to the hospital and Frossard House.
The companies saw to it that deliveries were made to specific departments within the buildings and helped to unpack and distribute supplies at certain sites.
The issue was raised at a recent hustings by candidate Rhona Humphreys.
‘When I found out recently that the States had decided to use Amazon Business rather than a local company for their stationery supplies I was shocked,’ she said.
‘It is surely imperative that we support local businesses when securing procurement contracts, and equally as imperative when looking at the costs that we take into account the benefit to the island of keeping supply on-island. I hope that the States will rethink this decision.’
Fellow candidate Marc Laine said that he had made States procurement a major issue in his manifesto and it was something he would be keen to address.
‘People are rightly frustrated. In this latest example, the added value local companies bring I feel wasn’t given proper consideration,’ he said.
‘Local suppliers can respond quickly with urgent or unusual items thanks to their existing stock and presence on-island. This agility will be lost with a purely online provider based elsewhere. Or local suppliers will just get the crumbs.’
A spokesman for the States’ procurement department said that the items involved were low value consumables which could amount to several thousand transactions a year.
‘It is therefore important that we can buy these efficiently and competitively.
‘We use Amazon in the same way, and for the same reasons, that thousands of individuals and families use Amazon across the island.’
Stationery procurement had not been reviewed for about five years, he said, and a tender was opened last year.
The States said that scoring was weighted to recognise the benefits of on-island suppliers, but Amazon still won out.
The spokesman said it was disappointing that a local supplier was not able to win the business but the States had a responsibility to spend taxpayers’ money responsibly.
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