Consultancy services and procurement

The Commission’s policy on selecting and engaging consultants is based on the relevant Commonwealth Procurement Guidelines and Chief Executive Instructions. It is Commission policy to restrict the use of consultants to circumstances when the required specialist skills are not available within the Commission, or independent assessment is considered desirable and the task is short-term and discrete.

In general, the Commission’s requirements for consultancy services can be identified against a number of broad categories that include employment-related services; business analysis and review; design, development and delivery of leadership, learning, development and capability building related programmes and provision of related advice.

The method of selecting consultants is based on principles consistent with the procurement methodology used for obtaining other goods and services and is underpinned by the Commonwealth Procurement Guidelines. Factors taken into account in determining the method of selecting consultants include the extent of competition available in the market place, the complexity and estimated cost of the proposed consultancy, the available timeframe, and the cost of approaching the market and evaluating offers. The Commission has in place a deed of standing offer for provision of learning and development and related consulting services.

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Consultancy services

During 2004–05, eight new consultancy contracts were entered into involving total actual expenditure of $0.254 million. In addition, two ongoing consultancy contracts were active during 2004–05, involving total actual expenditure of $0.231 million. This compares with total actual expenditure in 2003-04 of $0.901 million.

Table 36: Use of consultants

	Number of new consultancy contracts let	Number of ongoing consultancy contracts that were active	Total Actual expenditure on all new contracts $’000	Total Actual expenditure onongoing consultancy contracts that were active $’000	Consultancy expenditure Grand Total $’000
2003-04	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	901
2004-05	8	2	254	231	485

The introduction of the Department of Finance and Administration Guidance on Identifying Consultancies for Annual Reporting Purposes in July 2004 led to a reduction in the number of consultancies and expenditure reported by the Commission. Consultancies relating to the delivery learning and development services, which were reported in earlier years, are now excluded by the reporting guidelines. The majority of the Commission’s contracting covers the delivery of learning and development services.

A list of all consultancy contracts with a value of $10,000 or more (inclusive of GST) is published on the Commission website.

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Competitive tendering and contracting

During the year, the Commission did not undertake competitive tendering and contracting activities as defined by the annual report guidelines.

The Commission did not exempt any contracts from the Purchasing and Disposal Gazette.

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Purchasing

The Commission undertakes its purchasing consistent with the requirements of the Commonwealth Procurement Guidelines issued by the Department of Finance and Administration. The majority of the Commission’s procurement is from small to medium sized Australian and New Zealand entities. The Commission is also part of the Group 8 information technology outsourcing arrangements that are contracted with Volante, a small to medium sized Australian firm. This contract is discussed under Information Management.

During 2004-05 the Commission undertook a range of procurement and contracting activities. These included contracts for:

internal audit services from Ernst and Young
real estate and property management services from CB Richard Ellis
technical assistance to Asia–Pacific countries in support of improved public service performance from an international public management panel.

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