Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 26 May 2015
325. Deputy Mary Mitchell O'Connor asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the number of small and medium sized enterprises that applied for Government procurement contracts; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20067/15]
Amharc ar fhreagra326. Deputy Mary Mitchell O'Connor asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the number of small and medium sized enterprises that were successful in their applications for Government procurement contracts; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20068/15]
Amharc ar fhreagraI propose to take Questions Nos. 325 and 326 together.
It is the responsibility of individual contracting authorities to publish tender notices and contract award notices. In 2013, public service and semi-state bodies published 5,826 tender notices. This process is facilitated through the national eProcurement portal www.etenders.gov.ie. This portal is the Irish Government's public platform for advertising public sector procurement tenders. Contracting authorities can use this portal to receive responses electronically from suppliers. However, a large proportion of tender responses are submitted in hard copy and it is not possible to accurately report on the number of bids for all tender notices published. Responses in hardcopy are requested where exhibits and sample material is required by contracting authorities for evaluation purposes.
The eTenders system is also used to automatically send out e-notifications of tender notices published on the system to registered suppliers who have expressed an interest in the particular type of goods, services or works required in the tender notice. This is driven using the Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV) codes of the European Commission. The system also incorporates a Supplier Register that holds company information as entered by each supplier. Historically many suppliers have registered their company multiple times and often provided incorrect business profiles. While significant progress was made during 2014 in cleaning up supplier data on the etenders system, the work is still on-going and there is insufficient current information available to report on tendering activity by supplier classification such as small and medium sized enterprises.
The Office of Government Procurement (OGP), which commenced sourcing operations in 2014, has a clear remit to deliver sustainable savings for the taxpayer through centralising procurement across the public service and encouraging SMEs to fully engage in public procurement. In this context, the OGP chairs an SME stakeholder group which includes representatives from a range of groups and organisations that represent SMEs in Ireland. The Office is working with these government agencies and industry representative bodies in developing and implementing policy initiatives, and in driving supplier education and awareness.
The OGP published a Public Service Spend and Tendering Analysis report in March 2015. This report as the first of its kind for the public service, analysed €2.742 billion of non-pay expenditure data from the Health, Justice, Local Government and Education sectors for 2013 representing a significant portion of overall procurement expenditure for that year. For the first time, we have a view as to how and with whom that money was spent and the analysis is very encouraging. The data analysed indicates that 93% of the State s invoiced expenditure is with firms within the State and that 66% of the State s expenditure is with SMEs.
