Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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530. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the proportion of public procurement contracts divided into smaller contracts in order to facilitate application of smaller providers; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38169/23]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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In March, my Department published Circular 05/2023: Initiatives to assist SMEs in Public Procurement, which replaced Circular 10/2014. The circular highlights the positive measures that contracting authorities can take to promote SME participation in public sector procurement, including the separation of contracts into lots where reasonable and without compromising efficiency and value for money.

Circular 05/2023 also sets out the threshold at which contracting authorities are required to advertise all contracts for goods and services on the national electronic tendering service, eTenders, is now €50,000 (exclusive of VAT). Based on the data available to my Department through eTenders, please find in the table below details on the proportion tenders for public contracts published on eTenders where those contracts have been sub-divided into Lots. This data relates to all tenders published on eTenders, whether above or below national and EU thresholds:

Proportion of Public Procurement Tenders published on eTenders with Lots

Table 1. – Proportion of Tenders published with Lotting applied between 2018 and 2022 inclusive

It is important to note, there is no data available to my Department to determine precisely the reason for a contracting authority’s decision to sub-divide their contracts into Lots.

The use of lotting is but one measure within a suite of measures that can be taken by contracting authorities to assist SMEs access public procurement opportunities. As part of their pre procurement planning, contracting authorities consider strategies to achieve greater value for money in line with the overall strategic objectives of their organisations. Therefore, each contracting authority is best placed to determine how it can incorporate the measures outlined in Circular 05/2023 into their Corporate Procurement Plans and individual procurements within the remits of EU Procurement Law.

My Department will continue to proactively engage with business to enhance the significant measures and strategies already in place to support SME access to public procurement opportunities building on the progress to date.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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531. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the steps taken since 2020 to support training and professional development across the procurement system making particular reference to procurement systems in local authorities; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38170/23]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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Since 2020, my Department, specifically the Office of Government Procurement (OGP), has taken a number of significant steps to support training and professional development across the procurement system.

These steps include:

1. In 2020, the Commercial Skills Academy launched a programme of training supports to increase the commercial capabilities of public servants tasked with the delivery of capital funded public works projects. Since 2020, the programme has delivered over 1000 hours of training to more than 3000 public servants, with a significant numbers of the public servants availing of the training coming from local authorities.
2. A dedicated unit now exists within the OGP to deliver a programme of events focusing on procurement knowledge and information sharing across the wider public sector. Since 2020, this unit has hosted over 100 hours of procurement related events for public servants, with significant proportions of attendees from local authorities.
3. In 2020, a unit was created to develop OGP's procurement capability, through the provision of a programme of on-the-job training and supports.
4. In 2021 my department welcomed and endorsed ProcureComp^EU, a tool designed by the European Commission to support the professionalisation of public procurement.
5. In 2023, the Professional Practice Unit was formed within the OGP with responsibility for leading the development of professional procurement practice and skills across the public service.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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532. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform when he intends to establish the OGP on a statutory basis; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38172/23]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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In commencing the procurement reform programme in 2013, the Government decided that the Office of Government Procurement (OGP) be established initially as a Division within my Department, with an intention to establish it thereafter on a statutory basis.

In progressing legislation to establish a body on a statutory basis, there are a number of factors that I must assess including potential benefits, costs, regulatory considerations and risk. I am currently considering this matter. As the Deputy is aware, primary legislation is required to establish the Office on a statutory basis and, to that end, it is included in Government's Summer Legislative programme.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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533. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the number of times the OGP has been contacted by contracting authorities for guidance on the inclusion of social and environmental criteria in procurement contracts; if the OGP monitors the level of use of social and environmental criteria in procurement by contracting authorities; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38192/23]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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The Office of Government Procurement (OGP) has received very few queries specifically on the inclusion of social and environmental criteria in procurement contracts, relative to other aspects of public procurement. However, questions from contracting authorities at the wide range of events in which OGP officials facilitate (Procurement Officer Network meetings, Procurement Client Conference, Procurex, Category Councils, circular economy and sustainability conferences...) show much interest amongst contracting authorities more broadly in the areas of green and socially responsible public procurement.

The Green Public Procurement (GPP) Criteria Search online tool was developed by the OGP with collaboration from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications (DECC), to facilitate use of the GPP criteria published by the EPA. These GPP criteria are environmental criteria. The GPP Criteria Search tool was visited over 14,000 times in the nine months following its launch in early November 2022.

Circular 20/2019: Promoting the use of Environmental and Social Considerations in Public Procurement states that queries in relation to the development and implementation of Green Public Procurement, the annual reporting templates, and related guidance can be sent to the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment (now DECC).

Compliance with the green, social and other horizontal policy requirements rests with individual public bodies. The OGP does not have the capability to monitor the use of social and environmental criteria in tender competitions by individual contracting authorities.

However, for green public procurement, each Government Department is required to monitor and report upon its own use, in order to publish this in its Annual Report, as required under Circular 20/2019. The EPA monitors the use of GPP in procurement across Government Departments. To date, the EPA has published two reports on GPP by Government Departments, one for contracts signed in 2020 and one for contracts signed in 2021. These show the percentage of contracts (of over €25,000), both by value and by number, that the Government Departments class as GPP. The latest report is publicly available on the EPA’s Green Public Procurement webpage. The reporting template issued to Government Departments by the EPA is also available on this webpage. The EPA has commenced the process of surveying Government Departments on their use of GPP in contracts signed in 2022, and will similarly publish a report amalgamating results across Departments for that year.

The Government's Climate Action Plan 2023 introduced a revised Public Sector Climate Action Mandate that includes a commitment to implementation of GPP. Public bodies report on implementation of the different aspects of the Mandate to the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI). Climate Action Roadmaps set out how they will implement the Mandate. The SEAI recently updated its guidance on completing the Roadmap, recommending that public bodies set up a system to gather and record data on GPP implementation within the organisation, using the reporting template issued by the EPA to Government Departments as a reference.

The OGP and its partner Central Purchasing Bodies in Health, Education, Local Government and Defence record the inclusion of green criteria in their central purchasing arrangements, and collectively report this to the Procurement Executive and in the published annual report of the interim Procurement Reform Board.