Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 26 March 2013
296. Deputy Seán Kyne asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if his attention has been drawn to the fact that the savings to be made under the proposed reform of the State procurement process will most likely be lessened considerably, if not negated, by the adverse impact centralisation will have on the viability of small to medium sized local business which would ultimately increase pressure on the social protection budget. [15231/13]
View answerThe 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 arrangements put in place by the National Procurement Service (NPS) are designed to enable the State to do more with less by aggregating procurement to secure better value for money. The majority of the aggregated arrangements are not new and have been available to the public service for a number of years. In utilising the national contracts, public bodies are able to take advantage of the NPS’s buying power and as a result can purchase supplies at competitive prices. This facilitates ongoing service delivery within tighter operating budgets.
In relation to the potential impact of aggregated procurement arrangements, it is worth noting that such arrangements can be implemented in a manner that achieves value for money and also facilitates SME access. While certain categories of goods and services may be suited to single supplier arrangements (e.g. electricity and gas), 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 – for example the supply of managed print services - can address local supplier issues while also ensuring ongoing cost competitiveness of the framework itself. In order to facilitate SMEs, the NPS has encouraged tenderers who did not have the capability in their own right of providing goods and services nationally to partner with other entities to satisfy this requirement. Such multi-supplier frameworks can also offer SMEs the opportunity to participate in national level contracts.
In order to encourage greater SME participation the NPS over the past 3 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 'meet the buyer' events hosted nationwide. Attendees could 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 over 3,000 SMEs nationwide. Parallel with these events the NPS also works closely with business representative bodies such as ISME and IBEC to provide briefings for their members.
