In brief
Effective government procurement (the process of purchasing goods and services) can deliver better value for money and savings across government.
- Procurement analysis is often performed with an agency focus rather than a strategic whole-of-government focus.
- Queensland Government Procurement has built a data set that provides insight into expenditure at departments but is not effective at identifying future procurement savings.
- 466 whole-of-government contracts have been negotiated with suppliers but there is no monitoring or reporting on whether departments are using these arrangements and if they are achieving value for money.
Strong collaboration
Departments are responsible for their own procurement, but to take advantage of the significant purchasing power of the state government, they need to consistently collaborate and share relevant information with other departments in a timely way.
By sharing insights and having effective monitoring and reporting, they will be able to make more informed procurement decisions and get better deals.
Right data and analysis
Data needs to be of high quality, timely, and classified consistently to use for procurement analysis.
Better data allows departments to analyse and understand what suppliers are charging other departments for similar goods and services. They can then use this to drive negotiations with suppliers and allow for more insightful procurement analysis and savings.
There is an opportunity to formalise arrangements to share information and data between Queensland Government Procurement, Queensland Treasury and other agencies to enhance cross-government expenditure analysis. This could be supplemented by department-specific procurement data and analysis.
Effective monitoring and reporting
More monitoring of and reporting on procurement is required. Specifically, government needs to know if departments are taking advantage of existing whole-of-government arrangements designed to speed up procurement processes and achieve savings – and if not, why not.
Queensland Government Procurement also needs to monitor its strategy for improving procurement data.
For more information
For more information on the issues and opportunities highlighted in this report in brief, please see the full report.