Review of significant procurements

Under the Government Procurement Rules (Rule 22), we review procurements that meet one or more of the Significant Procurement Plan (SPP) criteria. This includes procurements that:

• have an estimated total value over the entire contract of NZ$5 million or more
• due to the nature or complexity of the procurement, would expose the agency or government to significant risks if not delivered to specification, within budget and on time
• have the potential for cross-government collaboration or resource sharing.

It doesn't include:

• procurements that aren’t covered by the Rules
• plans or business cases that don’t discuss procurement activities
• procurements that are covered under another governance process, eg procurements being reviewed by Treasury as part of Rule 65: Business cases and investment decisions.

Although this service is mainly for significant procurements, we're happy to provide advice at the planning stage of any state sector procurement.

How it works

To help agencies achieve the best outcome from their procurement, we peer review any document that sets out:

• what you intend to procure
• how you intend to approach the market and why
• how you will evaluate bids
• how you intend to contract.

This could be a business case, a procurement plan, a sourcing plan or similar.

Email your procurement planning document to the Procurement planning team. It’s a good idea to send your procurement planning documents to us as early as possible, eg at the draft stage. We aim to provide feedback within five business days of receiving your document.

Documents are submitted to us in confidence and are not published, though we might forward your documents to other functional lead agencies if they relate to ICT procurement initiatives.

What we review

We provide advice and feedback on your procurement planning document to make sure that:

• the Principles of Government Procurement and the Government Procurement Rules are applied
• the procurement aligns with your agency’s business or policy objectives government priorities, eg sustainability, and Key Result Areas
• the specified goods, services or works meet your needs
• there is sufficient analysis of the supply market to support the procurement and the approach to market strategy fits the nature, size, complexity and risk of the procurement
• risks have been fully identified and assessed
• the costs / benefits analysis supports the procurement, the whole-of-life costs have been estimated, and value-for-money is reflected in the evaluation criteria
• evaluation criteria and the relative importance of each criterion are suitable
• the proposed contract type, length and terms are appropriate
• there is a robust stakeholder engagement plan
• any opportunities for collaboration have been identified eg joining an existing syndicated contract.

Why we review significant procurements

We want to work collaboratively with agencies to foster robust procurement planning. Our reviews help with:

• improving procurement planning practice and the quality of decision-making
• achieving the best value-for-money over the whole-of-life
• identifying opportunities to collaborate with other agencies to achieve cost savings and other benefits.

We don't:

• charge a fee for reviewing your document
• need you to use a specified template
• approve or sign off your procurement planning document
• veto or stop your procurement
• audit your procurement process.