THINK Procurement
What did we have?
MOSTLY DECENTRALISED
PROCUREMENT
• Staff purchasing in isolation with little guidance
or adherence to Council policy
• Inefficient spending
• Minimal environmental consideration
• Almost no incorporation of socially responsible
elements in procurement planning or purchasing
Issue Identification and needs analysis
Objective: to avoid unnecessary consumption and generate
economic, social and environmental value, and this in turn will
ensure that publicly funded purchases achieve and maximise
overall value for money, while minimising risk.
Value for
money
Minimise
environmental
impact
Good
Governance
Supplier social
and ethical
responsibility
Sustainable
The Plan
1. Research what systems exist, how, why people
procure – analysis and diagnosis
2. Collaborate cross council for input and buy in via
workshops, working group, trials - objectives
3. Draft a policy - criteria
4. Create new workflow procedures - options
5. Finalise document suite and start training staff execution
6. Revise and adapt - review
What have we got now
Sustainable Choice
Energy Efficient
Contains Recycled Content
Australian Made
Ethical Leadership
Environmental Leadership
Water Efficient
Low Carbon
Non Toxic Content
Minimal Environmental
Impact
The key training strategies are to:
(Run by North Sydney Institute of TAFE)
• Emphasise the transformative potential of sustainable procurement
practices;
• Encourage systems thinking;
• Motivate learners to participate in sustainable practices by developing a
shared vision for a sustainable future;
• Emphasise the importance of partnerships for change in establishing
procurement relationships;
• Create a group-learning environment with peer mentoring;
• Employ inquiry based learning approaches
• Facilitate action learning using the Marrickville Council procurement policy
and procedures as a simulated workplace context.
What worked?
• Cross Council working group
• Peer to Peer learning
• Fresh perspectives – thinking outside the
box
• Short, user friendly, simple policy
• Simple step by step procedure
• Links to our new project management
framework
• Link to our Finance One training
• Living the Marrickville Values
Where could we have done better?
• Having a reference group made up of staff who purchase
often e.g. infrastructure services – this would have saved
us time with the many iterations of the procedures
• Presenting key issues, statistics, opportunities to Senior
Management early on in the process (to get more buy in)
• Better understanding of software/systems in place and
how to integrate new procedures into those
• More comprehensive testing
• More practical and mandatory tools e.g. clauses into
tenders
• Dedicated resourcing (staff time and budget) to lead the
project
Next Steps
• Move to a centre led model through the
SSROC Procurement Roadmap
• Further embed social responsibility into
tender criteria
• Revise our: stores list, contracts and tender
panels to ensure we are achieving against our
QBL!
Questions…?