By Rob Cook, Marketing Manager, TenderLink
Economic growth is a national priority and local government is well positioned to play a role by encouraging development and by investing in the community. One of the most visible forms of stimulus is ‘buy local’ campaigns where the public sector supports its local businesses and community by seeking to source goods and services locally.
Meanwhile, issues like environmental consciousness, Indigenous advancement, multiculturalism and animal rights also impact to some extent on local government purchasing as community engagement becomes a priority.
If councils, for whatever reason, commit to following social or sustainable procurement practices designed to engage communities, they need to ensure that they are able to implement such policies, and be seen to be implementing these policies.
This firstly involves ensuring that a wide range of relevant suppliers are made aware of the opportunities to do business with the local authority. Secondly, the requirements for participation need to be precisely articulated. Related to this is the weighting applied to the various evaluation criteria. Whether you’re comparing quotes using a manual spreadsheet or an electronic procurement tool, it is essential that the weightings are robust and clearly visible.
Where online procurement toolsets are employed, they should be augmented with dedicated evaluation functionality to ensure that weighted criteria are transparently and accurately applied throughout the evaluation process.
With increased scrutiny, it is not only important that local authorities meet community expectations in their procurement activities, but that they are able to demonstrate this. So, even when fair and equitable weightings are applied, it is important to be able to address any concerns about the process.
The trend towards heightened community engagement is here to stay, and the challenges of balancing a wide range of conflicting community interests with the need for financial restraint mean that procurement will continue to perform a finely measured juggling act. It’s therefore crucial for procurement professionals to deploy the best systems and the best processes and to arm themselves with the best tools for the challenge.
*Copy supplied by TenderLink
