Log in with RealMe

To access the Procurement online service, you need a RealMe login. If you've used a RealMe login somewhere else, you can use it here too. If you don't already have a username and password, just select "Log in" and choose to create one.

What's RealMe?

To log in to this service you need a RealMe login.

This service uses RealMe login to secure and protect your personal information.

RealMe login is a service from the New Zealand government that includes a single login, letting you use one username and password to access a wide range of services online.

Find out more at www.realme.govt.nz.

Providing procurement advice

Procurement can be challenging. New Zealand Government Procurement’s advisory team has deep cross-sector knowledge that can help your government organisation get results.

Help on what to do

We receive hundreds of requests for procurement advice or support from government agencies. We can help at a range of levels: from questions around the Government Procurement Rules, to helping with the Treasury’s Better Business Cases process, through to high level commercial advice and planning.

The advisory team is experienced both locally and internationally in infrastructure projects, construction, ICT, healthcare, and social procurement. They have connections across government and the private sector. Public sector agencies can get in touch to have a confidential discussion at any point in the procurement lifecycle.

You can contact the team even if a procurement is well underway, but not proceeding as planned.

Our advisors are not consultants in the traditional sense but a team that is staffed by the public service, for public service. Instead of using a third-party procurement consultant, we can help government agencies with planning and running their procurement processes.

This is particularly useful for smaller agencies that may have limited internal procurement capacity. We can be your procurement team when you don’t have one.

Email us for help

Cost recovery model

New Zealand Government Procurement (NZGP) uses a cost recovery model for some of its advisory services. This is not to make profit, but rather to make the work we do sustainable over the long term.

This diagram outlines where costs may be recovered.

cost recovery diagram
Advisory services can be grouped into three stages of increasing complexity.

1. Fundamental advice – a free service. This covers rules queries, process queries, and reviewing business cases. The work usually involves one or two phone calls, or a couple of emails.

2. Guidance and governance work – has costs that may be recovered. This may include strategy, stakeholder influencing, or innovation work. This work usually involves a few hours, or 1 - 2 days per week worth of work from the advisory team over the medium term.

3. Delivery work – costs are recovered. This could include running and facilitating a return to market, or project delivery and requires close to full time involvement for months.

Help with investment management and reviewing your significant procurements

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

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

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

There are two specific instances where your agency may need help from our advisory team to review a business case or procurement plan:

  1. if the investment is at a level that needs Cabinet approval though the Treasury’s Better Business Case process, under Rule 65 and/or Rule 66
  2. if MBIE requests an agency to submit their ‘significant procurement plan’ for review under Rule 22.

In both cases, 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.

And in both cases, we don’t:

  • approve or sign off your procurement planning document
  • audit your procurement process.

Guiding you through Better Business Case process

If your government organisation’s business case or investment decision needs to go to the Treasury, our team has the expertise to help with a preliminary review. Our reviews can get your business case ‘investment ready’. We can help you identify issues in advance, which could reduce reputational risk.

New Zealand Government Procurement, as the system lead for procurement, may inform Treasury of any issues we find in a business case, regardless of whether the agency has requested a review. Proactively engaging our team in advance results in a smoother process overall.

Review of significant procurements

Under Rule 22, we review procurement plans that are requested by MBIE for review. This may include procurements that have:

  • a high value
  • high risk
  • high potential for cross-government collaboration.

How a review of your procurement works

Email your procurement planning document to the Procurement planning team.

If you’re not sure whether your document qualifies for a review, we can advise you on this.

We recommend sending your documents to us at the draft stage. We aim to give feedback within five business days of receiving your document.

Documents are submitted to us in confidence and not published, though we might ask your permission to share them internally or with other system lead agencies for input if needed.

What we review

When giving advice and feedback on your procurement planning documents, either for a Treasury process or significant procurement, we consider a number of factors.

At a high level, we look to confirm that:

  • the Principles of Government Procurement and the Government Procurement Rules are applied
  • the procurement aligns with your agency’s business or policy objectives and government priorities like sustainability
  • the specified goods, services or works meet your needs
  • there is enough analysis of the supply market to support the procurement
  • the approach-to-market strategy fits the nature, size, complexity and risk of the procurement
  • any opportunities for collaboration are identified (like joining an existing syndicated contract)
  • risks have been fully identified and assessed.

Regarding costs, we’ll check that:

  • the cost-benefit analysis supports the procurement
  • the whole-of-life costs have been estimated
  • value-for-money is reflected in the evaluation criteria
  • budget for the procurement has been secured.

We also look for robust and suitable:

  • evaluation criteria
  • contract type, length and terms
  • stakeholder engagement plans.

This checklist outlines the criteria we use when peer reviewing significant procurement plans.

Procurement policy and governance help

Every government organisation should have a procurement policy that is reviewed regularly. Guidance and a template is available on how to do this.

How to write a procurement policy

For more detailed advice on what your policy should include, or help with developing an overarching strategy that drives the policy, contact our team.

We also have members of our team with particularly strong skills and experience in governance. They can join governance boards for your large or complex projects, to steer and guide your organisation to a successful procurement.

Embedded help for hire

We offer an ‘experts for hire’ service, formerly known as the Commercial Pool. Our experts can come work alongside your team to deliver large or complex procurement projects. For example, if your procurement only happens once every ten years and you don’t know where to start, consider using this resource.

We have a track record of delivering successful outcomes by:

  • strength-testing your project scope and requirements
  • creating fit-for-purpose commercial and procurement processes that drive the outcomes you seek
  • managing your compliance
  • building your teams’ commercial capability.

We are client-focused, actively becoming part of your team while working to your requirements so the end result is 100% yours.

With our experience, we can reduce and mitigate any risks your project has, helping maintain the confidence of your team, your agency and your minister.

Our embedded support covers all stages of the project lifecycle to ensure successful delivery. We can:

  • develop effective business cases
  • set high-level strategy
  • create and implement project plans
  • source suppliers
  • represent you on advisory groups and governance panels
  • implement contracts
  • drive stakeholder communication.

Projects we’ve supported span the full range of sectors, including property, construction, ICT, health and social services. We work with agencies across central and local government.

We recover costs from this process, but it represents significant value especially when compared to third party consultants.

Contact us to discuss whether embedded help is right for you.

Help with supplier relationship management

Our advisory team can provide specific advice on supplier relationship management. This advice can be useful at any stage of the procurement lifecycle. Good supplier relationship management can help prevent complaints or contract breakdowns, and can help you get better value from a contract over its lifecycle.

For advice on supplier relationship management, email us.

There’s also a Supplier Relationship Management Toolkit available, which has useful guidance and templates.

Supplier relationship management toolkit

Top