Professionalising
the Procurement
Workforce
Experiences in the Netherlands
by Peter Reimer
Legal Advisor of the Ministry of
the Interior and Kingdom
Relations
My own experiences and expertise
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Legal advisor in a staff department for legislation and general
judicial advice
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Advising all departments and agencies of the Ministry of the
Interior
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Infringement procedures of the EU against provinces and
municipalities
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Deputy chair of an interdepartmental judicial commission on
contracts and procurement
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Member of the Advisory Committee on public contracts of the
European Commission
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Elements of good procurement
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Transparency
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Good and feasible rules
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An atmosphere of integrity
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Professional Procurement Officials
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From ignorance to professionalizing
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Start of mandatory tendering of government contracts for services
and products in 1993 on the basis of EU-rules
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Thin brochures, nearly no handbooks
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Interdepartmental network of procurement officers and lawyers
composed from time to time newsletters explaining interpretation
difficulties
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No further guidance of the Ministry of Economic Affairs
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Low compliance by municipalities
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From monitoring we learned that the municipalities had a great
underscore in complying the rules.
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The Ministry of the Interior introduces a mandatory control by
auditors on compliance of the procurement rules at the end of the
20th century
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Not only by sanctioning measures but also by stimulating
measures the performance of the municipalities improved year by
year
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Measures to improvement
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Knowledge Centre
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Education and Training
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Concentration of the procurement function
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Improvement of the judicial function
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PIANOo
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In 2005 PIANOo was set up as a centre of expertise
The name PIANOo stands for: Professioneel en Innovatief
Aanbesteden, Netwerk voor Overheids-opdrachtgevers
(Professional and Innovative Tendering, Network for Government
Contracting Authorities)
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Large network of around 3,500 public procurement professionals
www.pianoo.nl
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The website receives around 3,700 unique guests per week
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Products and services of PIANOo
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Information
Advice
Useful tools
Model Documents.
PIANOo-desk
The private discussion platform for public sector procurement
professionals
Meetings
Publications
NEVI
NEVI organizes and develops trainings for procurement officials,
general trainings as well as specific programs, such as:
• Commodity strategy development workshops for an airline
company
• Real life team negotiation preparations and practice for an
industrial company
• Commodity specific cost analysis workshops for a financial
institute
• Facilitating core/non-core competences discussions for a chemical
organization
• Increasing awareness of purchasing activities for non-buyers of a
public organization
9
Rijksacademie for Finance, Economy and
Management
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The Rijksacademie (=Academy of the central government) was
setup to improving the quality of the management of the
Ministries.
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The Rijksacademie is a cooperation of all Ministries.
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Trainings in different aspects of the general management of a
governmental organization but also in behalf of the procurement
officials.
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Procurement executive centres
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Inkoopuitvoeringscentra (IUC) = Procurement executive centres
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IUC’s are a part of the Cabinets programme “Compact
Government”
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The goal of IUC’s is the saving of 180 million euro’s.
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The forming of a IUC gives an opportunity to professionalizing the
procurement workforce
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A model organization table consists of Procurement officials and
standard 2 lawyers to sustain them
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Commissie bedrijfsjuridisch advies (CBA)
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An interdepartmental judicial commission in behalf of advice for
the management of the Ministries, consisting of one lawyer of
each Ministry and of each of the three biggest executive
organizations (central tax service, governmental housing service
and the central service for public works and water management)
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A year ago this commission was setup by merging two judicial
working groups and upgrading the new commission by appointing
a director of a legal advice department as chair
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Drafting general contract conditions and model contracts
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Advice on interpretation issues regarding the EU procurement
rules
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