The Government is committed to ensuring that SMEs are fully engaged with public sector procurement and the opportunities presenting. The purpose of the new guidelines and procedures in Circular 10/14 are to ensure that engaging with government procurement is easy and low cost. The initiatives announced will open up opportunities for small businesses to bid for State business and simplify and streamline the public procurement process. They will reduce the administrative burden on businesses that want to tender for public contracts. The new Circular has been broadly welcomed by industry representative associations.
The Circular applies to all public sector bodies, such as Government Departments/Offices, local and regional authorities, the health and education sectors and non-commercial State bodies. It also applies to works and related services contracts awarded by a private entity, which are subsidised 50% or more by a public body, are covered by the EU Directives if they exceed the EU thresholds. Contracts below the EU thresholds which are funded or part-funded from public funds, awarded by private sector entities, should, as far as possible, be awarded in accordance with the national procurement guidelines.
In conjunction with the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, the Office of Government Procurement has set up a high level group on SME access to Public Procurement. The focus of this group is to develop and monitor strategies for SME access to public procurement. The group also has regard to the Government's Action Plan for Jobs and specifically those actions aimed at maximising procurement opportunities for SME in the public sector. In addition the Office of Government Procurement, through its new governance model, including its procurement executive, will be monitoring any issues that arise from the implementation of Circular 10/14. Finally, design changes are currently being made to the eTenders national portal to capture data relating to procurement, and, in particular, data relating to contracts awarded over €25,000. It is expected that these changes will facilitate better monitoring and reporting on public procurement trends on a broad range of fronts going forward.
