Opening today’s (07-Nov-2013) Public Affairs Ireland Conference on Procurement Brian Hayes, as Minister of State with responsibility for Public Procurement at the Department of Public Expenditure & Reform, outlined the Government’s ambitious programme of saving targets in the area of Public Procurement.
Driven by the goals to professionalise our Public Procurement services and stronger supplier engagement – with a particular emphasis on indigenous SMEs – the reformed procurement function is underpinned by a focus on both price and demand/specification management.
“Our savings targets over the next 3 years are right and achievable. I am acutely aware of the degree of restructuring and reform necessary to secure significant savings for the taxpayer. By explicitly integrating a procurement savings target of €127mn into the Estimates process we are demonstrating our commitment to modernise an area where over €9 billion is spent annually on supplies and services.”
The Office of Government Procurement (OGP), under the leadership of Chief Procurement Officer, Paul Quinn, has seen several key developments over the past number of months, these include,
· Setting up an Interim Board – chaired by Minister Hayes – providing Government oversight and leadership for procurement reform across the entire public service
· Setting up an Interim Executive, with representatives from all higher spending sectors, working to ensure an effective and comprehensive transition to the new OGP model
· Setting up of Category Councils – to determine the most appropriate sourcing strategies for distinct categories of goods and services
· Full integration of the National Public Procurement Policy Unit into the OGP
With these structures in place and the organisation design phase nearing completion attention is turning to implementation. A key next step will see the roll out of contracts for common goods and services. This includes utilities, professional services and marketing, print and stationery, and accounts for 60% of the €9bn public procurement annual spend. Commenting on these developments Minister Hayes noted that,
“The public service will speak with one 'voice' to the market, in terms of eliminating duplication and leveraging the scale of public procurement to the benefit of citizens as recipients of public services and taxpayers as footing the bill. This focus ensures that procurement policy is aligned with the wider government objectives of fostering growth and job creation.”
In his closing remarks Minister Hayes spoke of to the importance of buyer and supplier engagement as both a means and an end of a reformed Public Procurement service. Referring to recently successful ‘Meet the Buyer’ and ‘Taking Care of Business’ events, he considered the mutual benefits of clearer channels of communication between public sector buyers and private sector suppliers,
“A range of supports have been put in place to ensure SMEs can compete for Government business. These supports will assist SMEs to adapt to a modern and professionalised Public Procurement market and, looking to the future, be better equipped and attuned to compete in a pan-EU public procurement market worth in the region of €2 trillion.”