Before you can approach the market or provider community, you'll need to plan your procurement.
If you are a public service agency, check to see if the product or service you require may be covered by an exisiting syndicated or All-of-Government contract.
Find out more about the contracts available
Check if any other agencies have a similar need. It might be more efficient and cost-effective to collaborate or create a syndicated contract that others can use in the future.
Check future procurement opportunities (FPOs) listed on GETS(external link)
Extra information on what you need to do before going out to the provider community and selecting a provider is in the developing a social services procurement plan section of our website.
At the start of your project, you need to:
Set up governance and project structure
Probity means acting ethically and fairly.
In procurement, we need to make sure all suppliers and providers have a fair opportunity, and that the process is transparent, accountable, impartial and equitable. All steps in the procurement need to be clear, open, well understood and applied equally to all parties who are engaged in the process.
Managing probity and acting ethically
All agency staff that are actively involved in a procurement activity, or could influence the process or the outcome of a procurement, must complete and sign a conflict of interest declaration and a confidentiality agreement. You might need a management plan if a conflict exists.
A high-level needs analysis can:
The statement of needs will feed into your requirements documents and procurement plan.
Developing a statement of needs
Use market research and analysis to develop a thorough understanding of the nature of the market and how it works. This will impact your strategy and approach.
You may need to analyse:
Research the social services provider community
If you haven't already, make sure there is no existing collaborative contract that could meet your needs.
To decide whether to use an existing panel, consider:
If you're still not sure whether to use the panel, speak to your agency’s internal procurement team.
If you do use an existing panel, you should follow any specific guidance that has been developed by the managing agency on how to use it, including defined secondary procurement processes.
You'll need to understand:
Knowing these two things will help to mitigate risks and influence any marketing tactics you might use to make your agency appealing to suppliers.
Positioning yourself in the market
To take advantage of lessons learned from previous experiences, you should:
Write a business case, if it hasn't already been done and your agency's procurement policy requires one.
The business case:
Use your needs assessment and market analysis to identify the outcomes you're seeking.
Unless there's a good reason to define a solution, it's best to describe your required outcomes and see what solutions suppliers or providers suggest. This approach supports the development of more innovative, and potentially better value, solutions.
Depending on the size and type of your project a budget estimate can be based on:
Sustainable procurement means that when buying goods or services, we will consider:
Issues that impact on sustainability include:
Requirements documents come in several formats. The one you choose will depend on your sourcing approach, the level of detail to be specified, and the rules at your agency.
The requirements document should answer:
Your procurement plan should support the business case and your agency's wider procurement strategy.
We can review your procurement documents and provide advice at any point in the planning stage of your procurement. Or you can hire an expert from our commercial pool to come and work alongside throughout your procurement.
Before you can approach the market or provider community, you'll need to decide:
The option you select should reflect the nature and complexity of the service (including the value and the length of the contract) and:
Choose the right option for your project
Agencies that are subject to the Government Procurement Rules must advertise procurement opportunities worth over $100,000 on GETS.
Rule 15: Exemption from open advertising
To be able to evaluate the proposals you receive, you need to decide the criteria you'll ask potential suppliers or providers to meet, and choose an evaluation model to determine how those criteria will be prioritised against each other.
Deciding on evaluation criteria
Deciding on an evaluation methodology
Choose a panel of 3–5 people with a mix of skills and experience who'll decide the criteria and evaluate the offers. You can also ask experts to evaluate specific parts of proposals (eg price or technical requirements) without making them part of the official panel.
Setting up the evaluation panel
You'll still need to go through an evaluation process to ensure the supplier has the capability, capacity and expertise to deliver what you need. This process might not be as formal as the one outlined here, but it will still need to be robust enough for objective decision-making, including determining value for money.
Your procurement plan should include:
For any procurements with a whole of life value of more than $5 million, you'll need to submit the procurement plan to us for review if requested. See Rule 22: Significant procurement plans.
Review of significant procurements
Finally, now is a good time to start thinking about performance standards and measures - usually called KPIs.
Source
How to get quality responses from the right suppliers or providers.
Manage
How to manage the contract once it's underway.