Firstly I want to acknowledge the very challenging
circumstances that you are faced with at the moment.
Covid-19 has had a huge impact on all of us, and the
communities we live in. I hope this finds you well, and that
you and your staff are well placed for the challenges
ahead.
I also wanted to bring your attention to my
Office’s latest work that is about Local Government
procurement. Last year, my auditors visited 21 councils to
talk to them about how they do procurement. Using insights
from those visits, and from my Office’s other work on
procurement, we have written an article
that asks a series of questions about procurement practice
and culture in an organisation. The questions are designed
to help you think about whether procurement processes and
procedures in your council are working effectively and
whether they can be improved.
The topics the questions
cover are:
- good governance for
procurement; - planning for significant capital
projects; - conflicts of interest;
- emergency
procurement; - procurement capability and
capacity; - procurement policies and
training; - contract management; and
- achieving
broader outcomes through procurement.
I
encourage you to reflect on the questions in the article
and, where you see gaps in procurement at your council,
implement the necessary changes to strengthen your
procurement processes and procedures. A good start to
assessing whether procurement in your council can be
improved would be to ask your Audit and Risk Committee (or
equivalent) to review your procurement policies if this
hasn’t been done recently. You could also consider an
internal audit to look at how procurement is working in
practice.
The article will be published on our website
on 19 May 2020. I encourage you to share it with elected
members and staff from your council. Please feel free to
contact the Sector Manager you normally deal with or your
appointed auditor if you would like more information on any
of the topics covered in the article.
Nāku noa,
nā
John Ryan
Controller and
Auditor-General
