Maude urges stakeholders to back UK's proposed changes to EU procurement regime

Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude is urging procurement specialists to take advantage of a “once in a decade opportunity” to make the EU procurement regime simpler, less bureaucratic and more effective.

Negotiations on the legislative proposals from the European Commission are expected to start in early 2012.

Maude said: “Common rules across the European Community and beyond are key to achieving the real benefits of fair and open competition in public procurement.

“However the existing public procurement rules are widely recognised as too complex; too many detailed requirements add costs and constraints to the process, and can promote risk averse, over-bureaucratic procurement. And despite the rules, the playing field is still not always and everywhere as level as it should be.”

The minister added that the rules must “help promote growth, and encourage innovative ways of delivering public services such as employee-owned providers”.

Maude’s call comes after the UK government published its response to the Green Paper on modernising public procurement.

In the response, which can be found here, the government said it wanted radical simplification of the public procurement regime to free up markets and facilitate growth.

It called on the EU to:

• allow a flexible approach towards employee led organisations/mutuals to enable employees to gain experience of running public services prior to full and open competition
• reduce “lengthy and burdensome” procurement processes
• modernise the procurement procedures and provide more flexibility for purchasers to follow best commercial practice
• support measures to enhance SME access to public procurement, “where such measure are non-discriminatory and are consistent with a value for money approach”.

The response also set out several specific changes which the government believes would contribute to the overall aim of simplification. These are:

• raise the threshold for goods and services procurement
• allow temporary exemptions for employee-led organisations/mutuals
• improve framework agreements and similar models (eg DPS), with much greater flexibility to add new suppliers
• enable faster procurement. “Pare-back mandatory timescales to the absolute minimum”
• allow procurers much more freedom to negotiate
• allow more flexibility on when and how suppliers’ and service providers’ past performance, skills and quality of service can be taken into account
• simplify and reduce the burden of supporting documents which candidates have to provide
• provide more flexibility in the use of electronic marketplaces by public authorities, and
• provide clarification and clearer guidance on how social and environmental issues can be taken into account, and how they can help to achieve value for money.

The Cabinet Office admitted that it would not be easy to influence the EU to make the changes it is seeking. It called on the UK stakeholder network in procurement to lend its active support to its objectives.

Philip Hoult