Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)
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237. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the number of educational workshops, training seminars, conferences, meetings or otherwise that the Office of Government Procurement has held with contracting authorities relating to Circular 20/2019: Promoting the use of Environmental and Social Considerations in Public Procurement; and the cost of same to date. [32869/21]

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The Office of Government Procurement (OGP) has ensured that Circular 20/19: Promoting the use of Environmental and Social Considerations in Public Procurement has featured at multiple events, conferences and meetings since it was launched on 21 October 2019 by the then Minister for Finance & Public Expenditure and Reform, Paschal Donohoe TD; the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment (now called the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications) Richard Bruton TD and the then Minister of State with responsibility for Public Procurement at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, Patrick O’Donovan TD. The OGP held one Client Conference and five Procurement Officer Forums.

The Client Conference was held in November 2019, this was a Public Procurement event for public sector clients and their Procurement Officers with approximately 660 attendees.  Introduced by the Minister of State and the Chief Procurement Officer, the Client Conference covered nine topics over two days including Policy developments relating to Environmental and Social Considerations. There were also breakout sections where Contracting Authorities engaged directly with OGP staff. The event was held in Dublin Castle with a cost of €781. 

In 2020, the OGP delivered four Procurement Officer Forums for contracting authorities. These forums are attended by contracting authorities across central and local government as well as the Health, Defence and Education Sectors. These forums play a significant role in engaging with and supporting procurement practitioners in their roles. Due to COVID these events were conducted online in November 2020 (4th, 11th and 18th), 23rd of March 2021 and 18th of May 2021 with officials of over one hundred Contracting Authorities in attendance.  There were no external costs associated with the running of these online events.

The OGP also supported the EPA in developing a training programme in the area of Green Public Procurement (GPP) for procurement practitioners. The EPA is responsible for the funding of this training which was delivered online during 2020. This training, administered by the EPA, provided training to public officials with responsibility for procurement in four sectors: Government Departments; State Agencies; Local Authorities and; Education Sector. In 2021 a second round of training commenced which will run to end December 2021.

Furthermore, my officials present at a range of public sector events and seminars held by other bodies to promote the Green and Social public procurement agenda as well as bi-laterial meetings with public bodies on an ongoing basis.