Purchasing, 2017–18

The Commission engages consultants when the expertise sought is not available internally or when independent advice is required. Decisions to engage consultants are made in accordance with the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 and related Regulations, including the Commonwealth Procurement Rules, and other internal policies.

During 2017–18 the Commission entered into 31 new consultancy contracts involving total expenditure of $0.3 million; this compares with 28 contracts totalling $0.7 million in 2016–17. Thirteen ongoing consultancy contracts were active during this reporting year, involving total actual expenditure of $0.5 million; this compares with seven contracts totalling $0.2 million in 2016–17.

Information on the value of contracts and consultancies for 2017–18 is available through the AusTender website. The Commission’s standard-form contracts for services and consultancies are accessible to the Auditor-General.

Table 7 details the Commission’s expenditure on consultancy contracts in 2016–17 and 2017–18.

Small business procurement

The Commission supports small businesses’ participation in the Australian government procurement market. Participation statistics for small and medium enterprises and small enterprises for 2017–18 are available on the Department of Finance website, at www.finance.gov.au.

We have adopted two specific practices to support procurement from small and medium enterprises:

• use of the Commonwealth Contracting Suite for low-risk procurements valued under $200,000
• use of payment cards for purchases up to $10,000, to facilitate on-time payment.

Exempt contracts

The Commissioner may direct that a contract is not to be reported on the AusTender website if it is subject to an exemption under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 or the Commissioner considers the information is genuinely sensitive and harm is likely to be caused by its disclosure. No exemptions were issued during 2017–18.