Page 345 - Week 01 - Thursday, 11 February 2010
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Procurement Solution project managers, industry designers and planners all in the one location to ensure improved communication and delivery of those projects.
The government recognise how important its procurement processes are to the effective delivery of those projects, which is why we have implemented a number of reforms to streamline the processes while prudently managing associated risks. In May 2005 we announced the centralisation of government procurement activity. This has allowed the development of expert and responsive procurement staff, which was not feasible under the previous arrangement where procurement was conducted by administrative officers who might manage only the occasional procurement.
Outcomes of other improvements implemented include the development of the call tender schedule and its publication on the Procurement Solutions website. This schedule aims to assist the local design, building and construction industries with their forward planning by informing them of the status and timing of tendering for the design and construction of ACT government capital works projects. There are also the implementation of a new Oracle-based business system for Procurement Solutions, which went live in November 2009; the updating of the Procurement Solutions website to a more uniform, stable and easy to maintain platform; and upgrading the tender register to make it more user friendly.
The government also implemented a number of changes to its pre-qualification system in 2009. The reforms to the pre-qualification process have made it easier and more attractive for industry to tender for ACT government work and to improve the efficiency of the procurement process.
Work is also continuing to simplify and standardise our template contract documents. This will see important improvements in the speed of our procurement processes, provide greater clarity to contractors about what is required and provide greater transparency in relation to ACT government requirements.
Effective from 1 May 2009, government procurement regulation 2007 was amended to increase the quotation and tender thresholds. The threshold reform addressed some of the issues raised by industry and business groups at the procurement roundtables convened by the Chief Minister during 2009 to discuss how to improve the efficiency of procurement activities in the territory. Raising the quotation and tender thresholds has made it easier to do business with the government for all procurements under $200,000, thereby allowing business people more time to focus on their commercial activities.
As part of implementing the findings of the pre-qualification review, the government has set a target of completing evaluations of tender for non-complex capital works projects within 15 working days of receipt of tender documents and advising the successful and unsuccessful tenderers within a further two working days.
We have also introduced gateway reviews into capital works projects associated with the health system. Gateway reviews have been used in the United Kingdom for several years and are used in New South Wales and Victoria. The purpose is to provide the chief executive responsible for the project with an independent peer review assessment of the project at a particular stage.
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