Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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58. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the number of procurement officers in the Office of Government Procurement; the responsibilities and functions of each; and the annual costs in this regard. [46303/18]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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Public Procurement is a key element of Government’s Public Service Reform programme and the Office of Government Procurement (OGP) was established to lead on its implementation. The OGP’s functions include Sourcing, HR, Corporate Office, Customer Service, Systems and Data, eInvoicing, Policy and Construction Policy.

The OGP commenced sourcing operations in 2014 and, together with four key sectors (Health, Local Government, Education and Defence), has responsibility for sourcing common goods and services on behalf of the public service, leveraging the State’s purchasing power. The OGP and its sector partners put in place Framework Agreements and contracts through which public sector bodies can buy these common goods and services, broken down into 16 categories of expenditure.

The OGP also has responsibility for public procurement policy, including construction procurement, across the entire public sector, eInvoicing, customer support, sourcing systems, data analytics and eTenders, the Government’s national tendering platform (etenders.gov.ie).

The Revised Estimates for Public Services 2018 has a provision of €14.5m for the salaries, wages and allowances of 246 OGP officials. There are currently 224staff employed by the OGP.