Public Procurement

Sharon Smyth
Commercial Director

4 March 2021
Presentation Objectives
Public Procurement
1. Looking back & Lessons learned
2. The here and now
3. Looking forward – What lies ahead?
What a year it’s been for
public procurement!
The Best
Lessons Learned
NIAO Report: The supply of personal protective
equipment (PPE) during
the pandemic

One of the Recommendations:

Consideration of the cost implications of, and
incentives needed for, developing and maintaining
a domestic manufacturing base and increasing
diversity in international supply.
The Here and Now
1. The Land/Web Project: An Update

2. Major Capital Projects

3. Management of the NI Direct Strategic

Partner Project – helping to deliver Digital
Transformation
The Here and Now
• Departments managing contracts must ensure that sufficient expert resources
are retained throughout the duration of the contract.

• Departments must ensure that staff managing contracts have the requisite
skills and experience so that citizens’ money is safeguarded.

• The committee recommends that departments develop a plan to ensure an

efficient means of providing the commercial skills, knowledge and experience
to maximise the outcomes of public sector procurement

• We agree that there is significant merit in considering how alternative models,

resourced with sufficient, highly skilled staff could improve future infrastructure
delivery by supplementing public sector skills with those available in other
sectors and streamlining processes.
Looking Forward
• Restructured Procurement Board
• Collaboration with UK Government
Commercial College
• Public Procurement Reform and New
Regulatory Framework
Looking Forward
Restructured Procurement Board

1 December 2020, Finance Minister announced the restoration and restructuring of

the Procurement Board

One of the key changes is the structure and representation of Board Members which
now includes representatives from:
• Senior Public Sector Procurement Practitioners (4 members)
• Strategic Investment Board
• Construction Employers Federation
• NI Construction Group
• Manufacturing NI
• Forum for Small Businesses
• Social Enterprise NI
• Trade Union
Looking Forward
Restructured Procurement Board

The restructured Board will be required to:

• Identify issues with implementation of interpretation of policies
• Develop solutions
• Bring fresh insight, thinking and best practice

There have been 2 meetings of the Board

• 16 December 2020
• 10 February 2021
Looking Forward
Restructured Procurement Board – What else has changed?

Previously Public Procurement Policy was approved by Procurement

Board and then circulated in the form of Procurement Guidance Notes
(PGNs) to the Public Sector, however there were issues with this
approach including;

• No opportunity for co-design with industry/key stakeholders

• Some unintended consequences identified which made it difficult
to implement the PGN or achieve the desired policy outcomes
• Compliance with PGNs was inconsistent
Looking Forward
Restructured Procurement Board – What else has changed?

Public Procurement Policy will now be brought to the Executive for

approval which will:

• Provide Departments with an opportunity to raise any concerns

prior to approval; and
• Once approved, the new Policy will carry the authority of Ministers
which will ensure consistency of approach.
Looking Forward
Restructured Procurement Board – Immediate Priorities

The following immediate priorities have been agreed for the Board:

• Social Value – to include mandatory scoring and to broaden

the scope of social value
• Supply chain security
• Review of existing PGNs
Looking Forward
Government Commercial College

• NI Public Sector can now access training courses through the UK

Government Commercial College.
• Enabling staff working in commercial roles (project management,
contract management, procurement etc) to avail of training.
• Staff managing contracts or projects over £20m are also attending
the Government Commercial Function’s (GCF) Assessment and
Development Centre which provides a baseline of skills and
competencies in this area.
• NI Public Sector can now access the Government Commercial
Function’s Knowledge Hubs and we’ve recently created a Hub
specifically for the NI Public Sector.
What Lies Ahead?
Transforming Public Procurement

The Green Paper: Transforming public procurement was published in December

2020

The proposals in the Green Paper are intended to shape the future of public
procurement for many years to come

Some of the most notable changes are:

• Replacing the 4 sets of procurement regulations with a single, uniform set of
rules for all contract awards
• Overhauling the inflexible procurement procedures and replacing them with 3
simple modern procedures
• Capping the level of damages available to bidders to reduce the
attractiveness of speculative claims which delay procurement competitions
Questions?