Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The public service reform plan published by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform in November 2011 identified procurement reform as a key instrument that can assist in maintaining the delivery of public services in an efficient manner. The National Procurement Service, NPS, has put in place a number of national arrangements designed to secure better value for money from leveraging the public sector’s buying power with regard to a range of goods and services that are commonly purchased across the public service. These national arrangements have benefits that include cash savings, administrative savings from reduced duplication of tendering, greater purchasing expertise, improved consistency and enhanced service levels. In some instances the take-up of the NPS arrangements has been low. In order to increase the usage of the NPS arrangements and thereby secure best value for money, the Government decided that it should be mandatory for public service bodies to use specified national procurement arrangements.

Circular 06/12, to which the Deputy referred in his question, implements the Government decision by making it a mandatory requirement that public service bodies avail of specified national arrangements put in place by the NPS. The list of categories subject to national procurement arrangements includes electricity, natural gas, stationery and office supplies, paper, ICT consumables, managed print services, print media advertising and motor vehicles. These national arrangements will secure best value for money and facilitate contracting authorities to deliver services within their budgetary constraints. Where a mandatory framework arrangement exists, any public service body intending to make a purchase other than through the framework arrangement will be obliged to ensure it can explain the rationale for not using the NPS arrangement and can provide a value for money justification that takes account of the full costs, including those incurred in managing its own procurement process.

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While the key purpose of circular 6/12 is to enable the State to do more with less by aggregating procurement to secure better value for money, it is worth noting that such aggregation arrangements can be implemented in a manner that achieves value for money with a minimal negative impact, or indeed a positive impact, on small and medium-sized enterprises, SMEs. While a number of the categories of goods and services mandated under the circular are suited to single supplier national arrangements, it should not be taken that single supplier frameworks are to be accepted as the norm. The greater use, where appropriate, of multi-supplier frameworks can address local supplier issues while also ensuring ongoing cost competitiveness of the framework itself. Such multi-supplier frameworks may also offer SMEs the opportunity to participate in national level contracts, thereby offering valuable reference work when competing for public procurement contracts in other jurisdictions.

In order to encourage greater SME participation, the NPS over the past three years has conducted a targeted programme of education for suppliers who wish to learn more about doing business with the Irish public service. This programme consists of seminars, workshops and large-scale so-called meet the buyer events hosted nationwide. In 2012 the NPS, working with InterTradeIreland, for the first time brought together a number of the lead Government agencies to create a programme of major events for the island of Ireland. Attendees could also avail of educational seminars on a variety of topics ranging from the technicalities of public service procurement to procedures around consortia building for SMEs. To date, the NPS has facilitated workshops and presented at seminars to more than 3,000 SMEs nationwide. Surveys conducted at these events have indicated a high degree of satisfaction among suppliers. Parallel with these events, the NPS also works closely with business representative bodies such as ISME and IBEC to provide briefings for their members.

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