Four priorities for the new Procurement Ombudsman of Canada

OTTAWA, Oct. 5, 2018 /CNW/ - The Federal Procurement Ombudsman Alexander Jeglic released his first Annual Report for the 2017-2018 fiscal year, which was tabled Parliament by the Minister of Public Services and Procurement and Accessibility, the Honourable Carla Qualtrough, on October 3, 2018.

The report summarizes the Office of the Procurement Ombudsman's (OPO) activities from April 1, 2017 to March 31, 2018, identifies issues in federal procurement and outlines the most common feedback received from suppliers and federal officials. Key issues highlighted in the report include:

Annex: Profile of Contacts (CNW Group/Office of the Procurement Ombudsman)

• The need to simplify the procurement process, e.g. rules and regulations; resources required to respond to solicitations.
• The difficulty qualifying for, and using procurement tools such as standing offers and supply arrangements.

The Procurement Ombudsman also highlighted the fact that the Office celebrated its 10^th anniversary and that in the past decade, OPO responded to over 4,000 contacts, has completed 39 reviews of complaint, 19 procurement practice reviews of 30 federal organizations, and helped resolve disputes between federal official and suppliers in 31 cases.  

In addition, Mr. Jeglic detailed his mandate's four priorities:

• Transparency: to make more information available to Canadians, such as the public release of supplier complaint reports;
• Simplification: to simplify all information and tools produced by his Office;
• Growth in dispute resolution services: to strongly promote OPO's Alternative Dispute Resolution services and obtain consent to participate in advance through contract language;
• Knowledge deepening and sharing: to perform deeper and more comprehensive analysis of procurement issues and help educate the procurement community on root causes of issues, and potential solutions.

"As I begin my first year as the Procurement Ombudsman, says Mr. Jeglic, I look forward to engaging with Canadian businesses and federal government officials to resolve issues and promote fairness, openness and transparency in the federal procurement process."

The 2017-2018 Annual Report can be found on OPO's Website at opo-boa.gc.ca. See annex for more details.

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ANNEX

Office of the Procurement Ombudsman 2017-2018 Annual Report

Top 5 procurement-related issues
1.	Solicitation
2.	Evaluation of bid
3.	Evaluation and selection plan
4.	Debriefing
5.	Planning and strategy

Issues raised by both suppliers and federal officials

	Title	Issue
1	Keeping it simple	The federal government needs to simplify its procurement processes. There are too many overlapping procurement rules, regulations, policies and trade agreements, which results in excessive time and effort to respond to a solicitation.
2	Problematic procurement tools	Procurement tools, such as standing offers and supply arrangements, can sometimes be cumbersome to use and difficult to qualify for. These tools also seem to disproportionally favour suppliers located in the National Capital Region.
3	Security clearances	Obtaining security clearance is a constant frustration. Examples include the inability to transfer clearances between departments and the length of time it takes to get one.

Issues raised by suppliers

	Title	Issue
1	"Don't bite the hand that feeds you"	Suppliers are hesitant to raise their procurement‑related concerns to federal organizations and oversight entities out of fear of being blacklisted from future contracting opportunities.
2	Can't compete	Small businesses raised issues about national requirements and contract bundling. While having the potential to increase efficiencies and save the Crown money, they make it extremely difficult for small businesses to compete as a prime contractor.
3	Difficulty with innovation	Suppliers noted that it is difficult to sell innovative products to the federal government as criteria are often too stringent, or it is too difficult to educate federal officials about their innovative product.
4	Rigged solicitations	Suppliers alleged that specifications in Statements of Work seemed tailored for specific suppliers or are "rigged" to eliminate competition.
5	Not worth the costs	Canadian small businesses reported that it is often "not worth it" to do business with the federal government due to the high costs of submitting bids in relation to the overall dollar value of the contract.
6	Suppliers underbidding	Suppliers expressed frustration regarding competitors that purposely underbid to win contracts, just to raise prices afterwards through an amendment.
7	Neglecting subcontractors	Subcontractors shared their frustration about how there is no one to turn to when they run into contract issues.

Issues Raised by federal officials

	Title	Issue
1	Competing objectives	Procurement officers often get pushback from program managers, who see the procurement process as an obstacle that is preventing them from doing their job.
2	Sole-source threshold too low	Federal organizations are allowed to direct a contract to a supplier for contracts of less than $25,000 – an amount that has not increased since it was established in the 1980s, despite the loss of purchasing power over the years.
3	Standardization not optimal	Federal officials have made some positive comments on the evolution of procurement tools, but generally speaking, the tools have not found the perfect balance between standardization and effectiveness.
4	Not a community yet	Procurement officers have stated that the procurement community needs to be strengthened. Resource capacity is running low, training/certification is difficult to acquire or ineffective and expectations regarding procurement officers is inconsistent across federal organizations.
5	Procurement training for everyone	Procurement officers voiced their opinion that more procurement training should be required for any public servant, regardless of role, who deals with any form of contracting.
6	Poor project planning	Procurement officers stated that a challenge they face is when they are confronted with requests that require unnecessarily short turnaround times.
7	Frustrations over furniture	Procurement officers have specifically pointed out how supply arrangements for the purchase of furniture can be particularly complicated and cumbersome to use.

SOURCE Office of the Procurement Ombudsman

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