merrion street

The Office of Government Procurement (OGP) was awarded the Public Procurement Excellence Award at Wednesday night’s National Procurement & Supply Chain Awards 2015. The awards ceremony was attended by procurement professionals from both the public and private sector.
Welcoming the award, Simon Harris T.D., Minister of State with special responsibility for Public Procurement said:
“The Office of Government Procurement is a major step forward in the way procurement is managed across the public service. Although the OGP is a relatively new organisation we can already see how it is helping to transform the procurement landscape. This award is testament to the hard work and achievements of the OGP”.
The Office of Government Procurement (OGP) was officially launched in July 2013 by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform and the Minister of State for Public Service Reform and the Office of Public Works. The remit of the OGP is to bring a more professional and whole-of-government approach to public procurement to drive increased efficiency, simplicity, consistency and standardisation in addressing markets. Its aim is to drive fair, transparent and open competition in the market place, while delivering sustainable savings and better value for the taxpayer through greater aggregation of purchasing public bodies.
The main objectives of the OGP are to integrate a whole-of-government procurement policy, strategy and operations into one office; to strengthen spend analytics and data management; to secure significant savings for the Exchequer and to improve the management of risk and supplier performance.
This award is an endorsement of the reforms and of the work that is underway to implement them. Thousands of public sector customers are benefiting from the frameworks and contracts delivered by the OGP.
Commenting on the awards, Paul Quinn, Government Chief Procurement Officer and CEO of the OGP said:
“The OGP’s mission is to deliver sustainable savings for the taxpayer and we are doing this in a way that enables any business who wants to win a government contract to compete in an open, fair and transparent manner. As we approach the end of the OGP’s first full year of operation, I am pleased that our work to date has been recognised at this prestigious awards ceremony. I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the commitment and capability of those working in the OGP and to thank all our public sector clients for their positive engagement with the OGP to date”.
The National Procurement Awards aim to encourage procurement teams and individuals to constantly raise the bar, to innovate and to maintain their commitment to achieving excellence. The judges - drawn from the State, semi-State and private sectors - commented on the overall high standards which made choosing the eventual winners all the more difficult.

ENDS