EURIM Public Service Delivery
Subgroup:
Public
Procurement Guidance
The problems caused by the
current plethora of complex and duplicated guidance with regard to public sector
procurement processes are flagged in the Public Administration Select Committee
report
“Government and IT: A Recipe for Rip-off”.
The problems are exacerbated
by the tensions across Whitehall and between central and local government as
budgets are cut and Government policy is to pass responsibility for delivery to
a variety of innovative, cross-departmental and community-based partnerships.
The aim
of this group is to promote good practice by identifying and publicising case
studies of success and examples of authoritative, clear and practical guidance
that are relevant to the procurements such partnerships will undertake.
Introduction and Terms of Reference
The task is to
promote good practice in flexible, innovative and short-order
procurements to deliver more for less, with a particular focus on
rapid payback projects that will free funds for re-investment in
further improvements, thus bringing forward economic recovery as
well as better service at lower cost.
The UK public sector
commonly pays 30% more for equivalent products and services and the average
procurement takes over 24 months compared to under 9 in Germany. The overheads
of public buying organisations (nearly 50 identified in the
NAO/Audit Commission report) and Framework Agreements (over a hundred
related to ICT products and services) are part of the problem. The situation is
often blamed on the EU procurement directives while Commission blames UK
implementation and an irrational fear of being sued by unsuccessful bidders:
”Please do not blame us for your English lawyers".
The aim is therefore for
Corporate and Associate members to work with observers in the Audit Commission,
National Audit Office, Government Procurement Solutions and the European
Commission to identify and publicise existing guidance material, precedents and
case studies from both user and the supplier side – and to address any gaps.
To that end the
Subgroup produced a succinct (five pages with cartoons to
illustrate the main points)
Status Report
linking to the
main sources of authoritative material and also a
One Page Summary for Ministers,
MPs on Select Committees, Councillors and others going in to meetings to
review proposals and programmes (large or small). The one
page
summary was described by Stephen Timms MP, then Financial Secretary
to the Treasury, as an ideal crib sheet for new MPs and Ministers to
try to avoid the mistakes of their predecessors.
The Subgroup then focussed on identifying those frameworks covering
Shared
Network Services
and
Security Products and Services
which represented good practice and should be re-used and built on, pending the
completion of the reviews being undertaken by Cabinet Office. Those reviews are
taking longer
than anticipated, largely because of the pressures to focus on immediate savings.
Programme for 2011-12
Quarters 1 and 2
2011
Quarter 3 2011
-
Plan forward programme to summarise conclusions from work to date and
publicise existing clear guidance on good practice as part of build up to
“Delivering More for Less” policy study.
Forthcoming
Meetings
Recent
Meetings
Group
Outputs (Papers & Briefings)
Other Relevant Documents and Links
|
March 2009 |
OGC Guidance for Procurement effectiveness in major project
delivery - 'A Formula for Success'.
This guidance is based on the premise that effective procurement
is central to the management of risk and a key component in the
journey to effective delivery. |
|
February 2009 |
Open Source, Open Standards and Re–Use: Government Action Plan
Government considers that in order to deliver its key objectives
a programme of positive action is now needed to ensure that
there is an effective 'level playing field' between open source
and proprietary software and to realise the potential
contribution open source software can make to wider aims of
re-use and open standards. Government policy on procurement is
set out in Section 6, while the Action Plan (Section 7) calls
for clear and open guidance for ensuring that open source and
proprietary products are considered equally and systematically
for value for money.To
help bring together the online debate around this Action Plan,
the Government has set up a public page which contains links to
blog posts, news stories and tweets about UK government, open
source and open standards. If you wish to engage in this debate,
please visit
http://www.cio.gov.uk/transformational_government
/open_source/index.asp
|
|
February 2009 |
Service provision and e-Government_Holland
There is no centralised IT procurement in the Netherlands.
Instead, there is a common, shared framework, sealed by an
agreement between local, provincial and national government, on
which major IT components should be developed and used, but the
speed and method of implementation varies widely between
different organisations (who pay for implementation from their
own budgets). This is the document on which that agreement was
based.
Flowers Report (Contrasting Approaches to the Adoption of
e-Government:The UK and the Netherlands
This paper compares e-Government policy processes in the UK
and the Netherlands and draws some generic policy lessons for
the implementation of e-Government policy. It focuses on cross-sectoral
activities, including the purchase and deployment of large IT
systems by Government, and the use of such systems for public
procurement (including e-procurement) and service delivery. |
|
January 2009 |
Procurement Guidance - Audit Commission paper
This paper aims to summarise the available supporting
information for public sector procurement, with a focus on ICT
procurement, including guidance documents, best practice, case
studies and toolkits, and where possible, provide evidence of
success. This supports the Group objective to make departments
and agencies more aware of what each other is already doing or
planning, as well as of the guidance available from the Audit
Commission, NAO, OGC and elsewhere. |
|
January 2009 |
Office of Government Comment (OGC)
Procurement Policy Notes (including 14 Jan 09 note on the recent
EU relaxation of rules on the accelerated procurement procedure:
http://www.ogc.gov.uk/procurement_policy_and_
application_of_eu_rules_procurement_policy_notes.asp
OGC Policy and Standards Framework
material:
http://www.ogc.gov.uk/procurement_-_the_bigger_picture_policy_and_standards_framework.asp
The OGC publication 'Social Issues
in Purchasing' (2006) offers practical guidance on how a range
of policy issues can be included at different stages of the
procurement process. It shows how the principles of sustainable
development can be made consistent with achieving value for
money, the efficiency agenda and meeting EU rules, and
demonstrates how social issues can be legitimately incorporated
into earliest stages of the purchasing cycle.
http://www.ogc.gov.uk/sustainability_social_issues_in_
purchasing.asp |
|
July 2008 |
Digital Era Governance
IT Corporations, the State, and e-Government
Patrick Dunleavy, Helen Margetts, Simon Bastow
& Jane Tinkler
Published by OUP 2008
This book examines how government information systems are
managed (or in some cases mismanaged) in several different
countries and contrasts varying policies, attitudes and
outcomes.
Details at:
http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Business/
Management/TechnologyManagement/?view=usa&ci=9780199547005 |
|
The National Audit Office has issued a range of relevant web
documents and reports, the more important of which are listed
below. They have a general guidance page at:
http://www.nao.org.uk/guidance/topic.htm#Procurement |
|
Spring 2009 |
NAO work in progress on: Sustainable Procurement:
http://www.nao.org.uk/publications/work_in_progress/
sustainable_procurement.aspx
This work is focussing on the procurement of routine goods and
the associated management of demand and of supply chains, while
reviewing how departments are reconciling sustainability
objectives with achieving value for money. |
|
December 2008 |
NAO report: Better Management of Service Contracts:
http://www.nao.org.uk/publications/0809/
central_governments_managemen.aspx
A key theme from the Procurement Capability Reviews is that there is
considerable scope for government departments to improve
contract management, with in particular a shortfall in contract
management skills and resources. It recommends that OGC should
extend the approach it has adopted with the IT sector to cover
other major service categories. |
|
July 2008 |
NAO Report: The Procurement of Good and Services by HM Prison
Service:
http://www.nao.org.uk/publications/0708/
goods_and_services_hm_prison.aspx
The NAO acknowledges that the Prison Service has made
significant progress in implementing the information technology
infrastructure needed to support its procurement activity. It
also states: “In seeking to deliver
its new IT system on time and on budget, the Prison Service
should refer to the lessons set out in our predecessor
Committee’s Report, Improving the Delivery of Government IT
Projects”. This is the 1999 PAC report listed below. |
|
December 2007 |
NAO Report: BBC Procurement:
http://www.nao.org.uk/publications/0708/
bbc_procurement.aspx
This report recommends that BBC makes wider use of its management
information to plan procurement spending and get better deals
from suppliers. |
|
November 2005 |
NAO Report: Procurement in the Culture Media and Sport Sector:
http://www.nao.org.uk/publications/0506/
procurement_in_the_culture,_me.aspx
While not specific to ICT, the report notes that wider use could
be made of framework agreements and other collaborative
procurement procedures and calls for better information sharing to help identify further
opportunities. It declares that better management information
would support improved procurement performance. |
|
November 2004 |
NAO report: Improving IT procurement: The impact of the Office of
Government Commerce’s initiatives on departments and suppliers
in the delivery of major IT-enabled projects:
http://www.nao.org.uk/publications/0304/
improving_it_procurement.aspx
This report assesses the impact of the OGC's work to date in
helping departments improve IT procurement and makes
recommendations on how further improvements can be achieved. |
|
1999 |
Public Accounts Committee Report: Improving the Delivery of
Government IT Projects” (including a summary of key conclusions
and recommendations):
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199900/
cmselect/cmpubacc/65/6502.htm
EURIM held a workshop in March 2000 to discuss this report. The
minutes of that meeting and other material from the previous
Public Procurement Working Group (1996 - 2002) are in the
Working Group Archive. |
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