Written Answers. - Procurement Procedures.
Pat Rabbitte
Ceist:
100
Mr. Rabbitte
asked the
Minister for Finance
if his attention has been drawn to the claim made by the Information Society Commission that the Government's delay in modernising the State's system for buying goods and services could be costing ?1 billion per year and that this amount could be saved through the introduction of modern e-procurement methods; the steps being taken to deal with this situation; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
[21838/03]
The claim referred to by the Deputy has been brought to my attention but I am not aware of any analysis that validates it. The ISC report, Modernising Public Procurement, published only last September makes no mention of such a figure and I have not heard any member of the commission endorsing the claim. Moreover nothing contained in the comprehensive report, Strategy for the Implementation of e-Procurement in the Irish Public Sector, published in April last year would support such a claim. The facts in relation to the Government's e-procurement strategy are as follows.
The strategy suggested that that there is potential for significant savings, possibly up to €400 million, over the seven-year lifetime of the strategy with further savings, up to €175 million per annum, thereafter. Since the publication of the report, work has been ongoing on the development of sectoral procurement strategies for the health and local authority areas assisted by seed funding from the e-procurement initiatives fund or 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 object 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.
The adoption of e-Procurement technologies in isolation from underlying reform of procurement processes and practices will yield little or no savings in a public sector context. Therefore, these are the priority areas for procurement management reform.
An intensive training programme for civil and public servants from key Departments and sectors is under way. The course focuses on strategic management tools and techniques, including methods for the management of high value and high risk procurement and the techniques for developing strategies based on thorough demand and supply analysis.
A series of procurement improvement projects are planned in relevant Departments/sectors, including Health and childcare, Education and Science, CMNR, Office of Public Works, SFA, Finance, Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Justice, Equality and Law Reform and Defence, over the coming year, each containing concrete actions for the delivery of significant savings. The first set of projects is currently under way in the health sector, Office of Public Works and the Department of Social and Family Affairs.
An aggregation strategy is currently being developed and is scheduled to be completed by mid-December. The strategy will focus on key markets for aggregating public sector demand over the medium to longer term. Work has already started on the potential for aggregating public sector demand in the electricity market.
In relation to the IT elements of the strategy, the focus is on supporting procurement reform with appropriate technology solutions. Work on common systems – e-tendering, e-catalogue and purchase cards – is progressing. Further enhancement of the e-tenders website to allow for, among other things, the electronic submission and receipt of tender documents is scheduled to be complete by spring 2004.
Question No. 101 answered with Question No. 21.
