New Zealand Government Procurement (NZGP) aims to transform its practice into an integrated, one-stop shop that delivers transparency, collaboration and value.
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) sub-agency is seeking information from vendors of what it called “source to contract” systems that would integrate and transform its fragmented functions.
Government agencies spend around $51.5 billion, or 20 per cent of GDP, procuring a wide range of goods and services from third party suppliers. While various numbers have been touted over the years, the exact scale of government spending on ICT is not known.
“Individual agencies are responsible for their actual ICT spending, reported annually,” a spokesperson told Reseller News. “There is no requirement or mechanism for the collection or reporting of overall actual government ICT spend.”
NZGP said any new platform or platforms would be used by upwards of 15,000 suppliers, including ICT product and service providers, and 4500 public sector users, including agencies and schools, a year. Each agency could have up to 20 users responsible for publishing and awarding thousands of contracts every year.
Last year, NZGP was taking what it described as an “ecosystem approach” to delivering apps such as contract builders and conflict of interest managers. At the same time it upgraded the GETS tender platform.
In the new request for information the current environment was characterised as “disconnected”.
“Each website has its own user interface and experience, only connected in most cases by use of the NZGP colour pallet and logo. Users have multiple passwords to access systems and require training or support to navigate each system. Only some interfaces are dual language capable.”
There was also no common supplier database or self-service portal, leading to duplication of administration tasks and burden. Supplier catalogues were also disconnected from the e-tender platform.
“The existing supplier all of government catalogue allows for search/filter/shortlist features but does not allow procurement users to run an RFx event on the platform,” the notice said.
Key enabling applications such as the conflict of interest and document automation tool were also not integrated with the e-tender platform.
“As systems are disconnected not all required data is able to be captured and stored in the NZGP data warehouse. Open data sets are being published and data sets cleansed over time. There are significant gaps in the transparency of spend information across government.”
Currently tender award notices are the only published measure for primary procurement. Contract and supplier performance data was not consistent and was not published after the award.
Business and operational support systems also required deeper integration with due-diligence databases and storage of common artefacts in a central location.
NZGP is aiming to make procurement.govt.nz the gateway website for all of its services with purchasers and providers able to access and interact together as well as with NZGP through a common user experience and interfaces.
“Our vision is to provide a one-stop-shop e-procurement ecosystem that makes it easier for government and suppliers to collaborate and do business together. Where information, tools and business opportunities are accessible, timely and targeted.”
NZGP said success would be achieved over a period of two to five years in stages as technology solutions were delivered and the NZGP data lake was “filtered and hydrated”.
“We already know that there are numerous vendors that offer some of the key components and functionality, but we do not know how much is being used in live production environments, and if so, where and for how long, what approach is used to add features and functionality to their platform, and how their licensing/subscription model works,” a notice published this week explained.
