Archive

Lessons Learned In Public Procurement

The National Audit office is working on a Lessons Learned report, highlighting opportunities for change in public procurement. Topics will include commercial and financial management, efficiency and savings and procurement and contract management. The government’s policy is to use competition as part of public sector procurement whenever possible as a way of improving efficiency through reducing costs, raising quality, and generating ...

Australian Government Covid Procurement Findings

As the world emerges from the pandemic, governments are reviewing their procurement of Covid related goods and services. The Australian Government tasked Professor Jane Halton, AO (Order of Australia) to lead an independent review into Australia’s COVID-19 vaccine and treatment procurements. Professor Halton is a well-respected and experienced leader in the health sector, with roles including former ...

Hungary Passes Transparency Bills.

Last week, Hungary's government passed the first two of 17 anti-corruption legislation bills, in a bid to avoid losing €7.5bn in financing from the EU. This comes after the condemnation by the European Parliament last month that Hungary is no longer a "full democracy" because of the “deliberate and systematic efforts of the Hungarian government” to undermine ...

New enRichMyData project offers innovative solutions for data enrichment

Several European and international organisations, covering large corporations, SMEs, research centres and universities, are joining forces to develop new methods and tools for effective and efficient management of data enrichment processes in the recently started project enRichMyData: Enabling Data Enrichment Pipelines for AI-driven Business Products and Services. The initiative is funded by the European Commission under the Horizon ...

£900k Government Fund To Help Charities Win Public Contracts.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) is running a Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) Contract Readiness Fund grant competition, inviting bids to co-design and deliver a programme that will enable the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sectors to increase its participation in public service procurement in England. The Contract Readiness Fund is worth ...

New EU Procurement Instrument Now Law.

About a year ago, we wrote an article on the new procurement instrument approved by the European Union. In recent weeks this long awaited change has become law. This International Procurement Instrument (IPI) outlines new regulations limiting non-EU companies’ access to the open EU public procurement market if their governments do not offer similar access to public tenders to ...

Blacklisting Gets Tested.

Back in June we wrote about blacklisting of suppliers and the Government’s intention to prevent poorly performing suppliers from bidding for government contracts. We mentioned the subject of Bain and Company and made it clear that Ministers would need to be ready to defend their decisions when debarring companies. “It won’t be hard for lawyers to draft ...

Thurrock Exposes Transparency Blind Spot

An investigation by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) into investments by Thurrock Borough Council has led to the resignation of the Council Leader and the Government has now stepped in and Essex County Council will run their finance team. TBIJ’s investigation has taken three years and focuses on large investments from multiple councils in firms run ...

New Zealand Government Reviewing Procurement System.

It’s always encouraging when we see governments around the world looking to improve their procurement transparency and efficiency. The New Zealand Government has recently released a Cabinet report, outlining plans to reform the government procurement system. The New Zealand Government currently spends approximately  NZ$51.5bn (US$35.8bn) annually on goods and services. Their procurement overhaul is based on three key pillars, ...

Collecting Data For Sustainable Procurement In Construction

Over the last few weeks we have been looking at setting a sustainable procurement framework in the construction industry, and what kind of  data is needed to assist with this process. In this article we will look at how to best collect data. Specifically, we introduce some of the methods that can be used to collect ...

Selecting Data For Sustainable Procurement In Construction

It is estimated that around 40-50% of natural resources are transformed into construction material, and that as much as 30% of all building materials delivered to a construction site end up in waste. To minimise this, it is important to ensure that the procurement process allows for careful and detailed planning of resource use during the ...

Big Net Zero Contract Win For Small Cornish Business

A small Cornish company has purportedly won a £70bn contract to help deliver the country's transition to Net Zero. The Penzance based company called The Place Group has won a framework contract to "control, manage and deliver" the public sector transition to Everything Net Zero, run by The East of England Broadband Network (E2BN), the contracting ...

Supporting Sustainable Procurement In ICT

One of the key challenges of sustainably procuring ICT lies in the lack of transparency in supply chains. To overcome this challenge, an open dialogue has to be established with suppliers, forging a relationship to encourage and promote sharing and monitoring of supply-chain activities. In relation to the environmental challenges of the ICT sector, procurement approaches ...

Shifts Towards Sustainable Sourcing

A while ago,  we shared an article on findings by the Boston Consulting Group and the World Economic Forum that showed procurement is responsible for 15% of all greenhouse gas emissions, globally. Their study reported that governments spend $11trillion(USD) annually-or 15% of global GDP, on procurement every year. Our own prior study, tracked the value of global procurement at ...

Why Is Open SPP Important In The Construction Sector?

The construction industry is estimated to account for 6% of global GDP, with Africa's construction market valued at around USD 5.4 billion in 2020 and LAC’s at USD 829.3 billion in 2018. This translates into more than 100 million jobs worldwide. However, this sector also accounted for the largest share of both global final energy use ...

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