Professionalising the Procurement Workforce

Experiences in the Netherlands

by Peter ReimerLegal Advisor of the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations

My own experiences and expertise

• Legal advisor in a staff department for legislation and general judicial advice

• Advising all departments and agencies of the Ministry of the Interior

• Infringement procedures of the EU against provinces and municipalities

• Deputy chair of an interdepartmental judicial commission on contracts and procurement

• Member of the Advisory Committee on public contracts of the European Commission

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Elements of good procurement

• Transparency

• Good and feasible rules

• An atmosphere of integrity

• Professional Procurement Officials

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From ignorance to professionalizing

• Start of mandatory tendering of government contracts for services and products in 1993 on the basis of EU-rules

• Thin brochures, nearly no handbooks

• Interdepartmental network of procurement officers and lawyers composed from time to time newsletters explaining interpretation difficulties

• No further guidance of the Ministry of Economic Affairs

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Low compliance by municipalities

• From monitoring we learned that the municipalities had a great underscore in complying the rules.

• The Ministry of the Interior introduces a mandatory control by auditors on compliance of the procurement rules at the end of the 20th century

• Not only by sanctioning measures but also by stimulating measures the performance of the municipalities improved year by year

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Measures to improvement

• Knowledge Centre

• Education and Training

• Concentration of the procurement function

• Improvement of the judicial function

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PIANOo• In 2005 PIANOo was set up as a centre of expertise

• The name PIANOo stands for: Professioneel en Innovatief Aanbesteden, Netwerk voor Overheids-opdrachtgevers

(Professional and Innovative Tendering, Network for Government Contracting Authorities)

• Large network of around 3,500 public procurement professionals www.pianoo.nl

• The website receives around 3,700 unique guests per week

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Products and services of PIANOo• Information• Advice• Useful tools• Model Documents. • PIANOo-desk

The private discussion platform for public sector procurement professionals

• Meetings• Publications

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NEVINEVI organizes and develops trainings for procurement officials, general trainings as well as specific programs, such as:• Commodity strategy development workshops for an airline

company • Real life team negotiation preparations and practice for an

industrial company • Commodity specific cost analysis workshops for a financial

institute • Facilitating core/non-core competences discussions for a chemical

organization • Increasing awareness of purchasing activities for non-buyers of a

public organization

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Rijksacademie for Finance, Economy and Management

• The Rijksacademie (=Academy of the central government) was setup to improving the quality of the management of the Ministries.

• The Rijksacademie is a cooperation of all Ministries.

• Trainings in different aspects of the general management of a governmental organization but also in behalf of the procurement officials.

 

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Procurement executive centres• Inkoopuitvoeringscentra (IUC) = Procurement executive centres

• IUC’s are a part of the Cabinets programme “Compact Government”

• The goal of IUC’s is the saving of 180 million euro’s.

• The forming of a IUC gives an opportunity to professionalizing the procurement workforce

• A model organization table consists of Procurement officials and standard 2 lawyers to sustain them

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Commissie bedrijfsjuridisch advies (CBA)• An interdepartmental judicial commission in behalf of advice for

the management of the Ministries, consisting of one lawyer of each Ministry and of each of the three biggest executive organizations (central tax service, governmental housing service and the central service for public works and water management)

• A year ago this commission was setup by merging two judicial working groups and upgrading the new commission by appointing a director of a legal advice department as chair

• Drafting general contract conditions and model contracts

• Advice on interpretation issues regarding the EU procurement rules

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