Introduction to GIPA Contract Reporting

Presentation byPhil Clark| Procurement

Objective of today

•To outline the GIPA legislation and our

responsibilities under this

•To show how contract reporting is to be

completed by Business Units

GIPA LEGISLATION

What is a GIPA?

• It’s about Freedom of Information

• From July 1 2010 the NSW Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 (GIPA Act) came into force replacing the Freedom of Information Act (1989)

• The GIPA Act creates new and enhanced rights for members of the community to access information to improve openness, transparency and accountability of government organisations.

Why us?

•The University is established under an Act of the

NSW Parliament and is therefore subject to

meeting the same requirements as State

Government bodies.

•This also means we are open to scrutiny by ICAC

and Auditor General among others

What does it mean?

• One of the requirements is to maintain a public register of the details of any purchase made by the University for a value of $150K or more

• There are other requirements around which documents need to be made available publicly and how we manage public information requests

• Overall control of information requests from the public is from the Office of Governance Services

• The means of entering information for the Contract Register is provided through Procurement

CONTRACT REGISTER

Contract Register

•Contract Register extract (GIPA Report) is

published by OGS and updated quarterly

• It is available as a PDF document to the public

who can download it from a public link on the

WesternU website

http://www.westernsydney.edu.au/about_uws/leadership/governance/government_information_publi

c_access_act_2009/contract_reporting

What info is published?

• The headings are:– Contractors Name– Contractor Address– Description of Contract – text field– Selection Type – quote/tender/direct negotiation– Contract Class– Contract Value – lump sum of expected total value– School/Division– Start Date / End Date– Variations and means for variation

• Other info is collected but only the above is published

• Information collection is covered in the next section

Contract Classes

• There are three Contract Classes:

– Class 1 – Over $150K and selected by quote or tender

– Class 2 – Over $150K and selected by direct negotiation (sole supplier)

– Class 3 – Over $5M

CONTRACT REGISTER ENTRY REQUIREMENTS

What is my responsibility?

• The responsibility for entering contract details into the GIPA Register lies with the Business Unit which originated the contract. This is stated in the Procurement Policy and the various template Procurement Plans

• The data entry template is available via Sharepointhttps://uwssharepoint.uws.edu.au/sites/Collab/GIPA/Pages/GIPAHomePage.aspx

• Entering the contract details is in addition to any other archiving requirements such as TRIM

What Are The Next Steps?

• If you are aware of any contracts in your Business Unit which have not been entered into the GIPA Register please take action to have them entered

• Spread the word around your Business Area about the requirement and feel free to share this presentation to raise awareness

Other Actions

• Liaison between Records Management and OGS to see if there is any TRIM reporting which can be used to identify gaps in GIPA Reporting

• Raising awareness of Financial Delegates when they sign off contracts over $150K

Contacts

Procurement

Use of GIPA Register

Phil Clark X 1347

Governance Services

GIPA Register Publication

Information Requests

Peter Spolc X 7832

Compliance

General Compliance Matters

Keira Wong X 9897

Contracts Office of University

Legal Counsel

X 9895

DISCUSSION AND QUESTIONS