Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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Question 71: To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform his policy on public procurement; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13164/12]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Public procurement is the acquisition, whether under formal contract or not, of works, supplies and services by public bodies. Public procurement policy is aimed at ensuring that all public sector purchasing is carried out in a manner that is legal, transparent, and secures optimal value for money for the taxpayer.

The changed economic environment has meant that it is necessary to do "better for less", providing real value-for-money for the Irish taxpayer by maximising efficiency and eliminating waste. In order to achieve these objectives my Department has developed a Public Service Reform implementation plan. This Plan outlines the priority actions and timelines for reform in a broad range of areas including procurement, as well as setting out how implementation should be driven and monitored.

The main components of procurement reform are:

A revised Policy Framework is being developed to build on the reforms that have already taken place in procurement. The reform plan will focus on achieving value for money through further harnessing the State's purchasing power in relation to commonly used supplies and services.

The reform plan includes specific measures to ensure that:

o these aggregated procurement arrangements are utilised across the public service;

o public bodies have appropriately trained staff to implement the reforms and to ensure the State is getting value for money; and

o that greater emphasis will be placed on analysing what the State purchases in order to assess other possible savings can be made through more efficient procurement methods.

The National Procurement Service will play an important role in public procurement reform through ambitiously expanding the use of aggregated procurement for commonly used products and services. They will achieve this by:

o working with bodies throughout the public service to increase the procurement capacity of staff throughout the public service;

o informing public bodies of the savings that can be made through the use of existing centralised frameworks where they are available; and

o drawing up a plan that will see more aggregated procurement of commonly used products and services.

These reforms will achieve better value for taxpayer's money through reform of public procurement arrangements leading to increased use of common/centralised procurement frameworks, increased professionalism in procurement and innovative use of technology.