Business Update

Changes to government procurement policy

These must be open internationally to all interested and capable suppliers via the Government Electronic Tenders Service (GETS) portal (a $10m threshold applies to construction services).  Annual forward procurement plans must also be published on GETS and any department pre-qualifying or registering firms for future procurements must list these on GETS, invite other firms to join the lists and publish the conditions for being added.  These requirements are now being implemented across government departments, and the increased transparency should benefit competitive industry.

MED has also conducted a review of government procurement assessing whether implementation of the current policy could be made more effective.  Focal areas of the review included overcoming perceived barriers for small and medium enterprises to sell to the government, and ways in which government purchasing could do more to stimulate innovation. 

The review, concluded in 2005, found considerable scope for improvement and steps to implement the recommendations are underway. 

One new initiative is the establishment of a new procurement development group within MED’s Regulatory and Competition Policy Branch.  This will focus on both raising the level of professionalism in public sector procurement and on promoting networking and links with industry and relevant government economic development programmes.  Internationally-competitive firms will benefit from the public sector taking a more open and strategic approach to purchasing decisions - as will the public sector itself.  Taxpayers will also benefit from increased levels of value for the money spent by the public sector. 

The mandatory rules and review documents are now available from the MED website.  General enquiries on government procurement can be made to procurement@med.govt.nz.