Ciarán Cuffe
Ceist:12 Mr. Cuffe asked the Minister for Finance if a review of public procurement procedures is being undertaken by his Department; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25713/03]
Written Answers. - Procurement Procedures.
Yes. The national procurement policy unit of my Department is reviewing public procurement procedures in relevant areas of the public service in the context of the roll-out of the strategy for the implementation of e-procurement in the Irish public sector approved by the Government in April 2002. The strategy contained a high-level analysis of the benefits arising from the adoption of better procurement procedures and practices and anticipated that significant savings could be realised during implementation of the strategy with further annual savings accruing thereafter.
Since the publication of the report work has been ongoing on sectoral procurement strategies for the health and local authority areas with seed funding from the e-procurement initiatives fund, EIF, administered by my Department. A senior procurement specialist, seconded to the national public procurement policy unit from the Australian public sector, has been assigned to progress sustainable procurement management reform in four key areas: organisational capacity building; training and education; procurement aggregation; and e-procurement.
The objective of procurement management reform is a sustainable change in the way that we organise our procurement effort in the public sector over the long-term and the realisation of the potential to achieve significant savings for the Exchequer and the taxpayer.