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Charlie 3 sums up the characteristic of procurement professionalism ‘I don't think that everybody in the business needs to be, a procurement specialist. They just need to understand their high level responsibilities’. This is a positioning statement for influence from the procurement department to the business units: the tools of procurement and a cultural understanding of the council’s executive strategy are the higher level

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Table 28 - Interviewee comments on influence

Council Interviewee comments on influence

Alpha Alpha 3 - I tend to try to read white papers and when they do research on LGA I kind of go with this paper and I go your weird, reading things like that. But it does promote change.

Bravo Bravo 1 - I'm not aware of any external influences that coming on to council no. And I'd say more of a drive internally I’d say … I mean we work closely with the LGA

procurement group but there's really no pressure as such imposed.

Charlie Charlie 2 - Well I'll be perfectly honest probably don't have anyone for inspiration. Most of our procedures that we have now, have been based on my 30 years doing tendering. Charlie 3 – We do research into the UK, into New Zealand what they're doing what they're achieving. We look at those influences you look at even the commercial sector and how they go about their work.

Delta Delta 1 – I can see there’s a real gap and lack of investment, good touch points back in to say seeing a BHP Rio Tinto, Banking environed NAB. So I'm using some of the influences there and looking at that and how would you work that in this type of environment without making it more of what we call window-missing it, as you get fit for suit.

Delta 2 - the visibility that I've had of the process is the procurement policy document and the requirements under the Local Government Act are the guiding influences, if you like.

Delta 2 - It is looking across the sector in various conversations and discussions around process improvement. So we've got a strong focus on driving that continuous

improvement … particularly procurement where there’s strong feedback internally of not delivering an optimal result.

Echo Echo 1 – Question about influence from MAV – NO. Question about influence other councils - No not so much. Not Councils no. I consider that we're pretty advanced. Echo 2 - Nowhere to the extend I used to. Local governments are quite insular. I sometimes jokingly say to Echo 1 I have had to un-learn so much since I came into local government procurement. Just have to un-learn. I just had to close my eyes, grit my teeth and just, try and get that wave moving a bit closer a bit closer but. Yeah. And, that's why we've been trying to build capability. It's totally different.

Foxtrot Foxtrot 1 did not provide any detail on influence, other than the comment ‘as a creature of statute’.

Golf Golf 1 - So what influences me is the past like, it’s not so much anything here at the moment because I am still developing relationships, but you know. Previous engineers I’ve had previous classes, I’ve had previous general manager I've had about values and it's about. You know it's about, I want to get things done. I want to be output driven. Golf 2 - I would have told you no it didn't. Well it does mean that you know those guys have a great framework as the RMS do in delivering.

Golf 3 - Twofold. My general manager is quite a visionary. He thinks outside the box. So I report it to (named) there's no one in between. He's quite visionary and sees

procurement as an area that we can transform. That’s where I get that philosophy, I try and get involved in the region joint organisation procurement.

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This is explained by Golf 3:

“Rolling out a training program not about how to raise a requisition or how to go to tender. But what is the purpose of going out to tender, why? What sort of thoughts should you have when engaging in you know procuring items? What's the concept of value for money? What's the concept of local economic benefit? Why is that important? And so training, more about the mindset rather than saying this is what you must do”.

This response is a descriptive of business partnering (Refer 6.6.2), a process implemented by council Alpha (called Project Management Teams) and council Bravo. Council Charlie has recently appointed a new manager, a qualified lawyer, to the procurement

department:

“I sort of see her as a bit of a savior of this organisation. I'll tell you what she brings, passion and hope that we can really educate this business to really understand the importance of stuff”.

The new managers task is to remove the ‘dysfunctional, complexity and confusion’ (Table 40) of the procurement department. This is an indicator council Charlie is moving in the direction of procurement professionalism. Procurement professionalism is described by Golf 3 as ‘someone that has a solid experience in dealing with procurement in a council of NSW’. This statement is not aligning with any academic, industry or professional

procurement body (CIPS 2018)38_{: it is a statement of resistance to moving outside the} council realm, as Golf 3 explains:

“Council is very specialised in that it has 32 different businesses, all have very different requirements. Some of our business units you know they purchase Coca-Cola and water and chlorine. Other ones are procuring you know eighty five million dollar roads. And we also have procurements for IT, we have procurements for theatre performances”.

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The discussion moved on to the complexity of industry and the transformation of the procurement department Golf 3 wishes to undertake leading to the question of why not engage a competent industry person, to which the response was not being able to afford an industry person.

Golf 3 comments:

“But you know, if I've got a budget of sixty thousand sixty to seventy thousand dollars for a staff member … You don't get that sort of expertise that we'd be looking for …I just haven't got the resources to be able to put to the qualified person that we need at the moment”.

This is a confusing statement as Golf 3 has justified the position of engaging two with a possible third consulting organisation, but cannot justify expenditure on a professional procurement person.

This aligns with Bravo 2 and the engagement of a procurement analyst and Echo 1’s comments relating to staffing resources, ‘one of the main reasons why he (CEO – sic) believes in a fully decentralised model is that because he’s attracted to the lack of resourcing that it requires, very attractive’.

From a council perspective, procurement professionalism is a nebulous discipline, the barriers (Table 29) to undertaking procurement professionalism are many and varied.

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Table 29 - The barriers to procurement professionalism

Council Procurement professionalism Barrier

Bravo Bravo 1 - I'm not, I'm a bit rusty on the Vendor Panel as in the system because the other bloke that was here before and he was the Vendor Panel guru in the system

Bravo 2

Procurement analyst position advertised (level 7 of an 8 level structure, salary less than $100k AU) – position not filled

Procurement Business Partner position advertised (level 5, salary less than $75k AU) – position filled

No competent operator for the principal TMP

application

Value of procurement not recognised

No recognition of the value of higher level procurement professionalism

Charlie Charlie 1 – 1 based on my 30 years of experience in local government doing tendering for 30 years

No vision for the new re- intermediated e-Tender Delta Delta 1 – Acting manager overseeing this going

forward … I believe she is, so I believe a management accountant.

Delta 1 - function. So in a way I look at it I actually get a bit irritated at that because I would have loved to have the opportunity to propose options for shared procurement.

No recognition of the value of higher level procurement professionalism

Four years in the role without any strategic plan or outlook

Echo Echo 2-2 - It was explained to me that they, each council picked a couple of admin people. And, Sheep dipped them into some intensive training. And suddenly your procurement people. And I thought God, now I get it now I understand

Council procurement departments positioned in status quo

Foxtrot Foxtrot 1 - we are fundamentally reviewing how we do our procurement and we are going to look into strategic procurement, we have identified a big skills gap here, we are very reactive, most councils are reactive.

The rhetoric of strategic procurement

Golf Golf 3 - I don't have any procurement, prefer trained procurement professional sitting in procurement. What I have is a procurement administrator that just handles all the paperwork.

No recognition of the value of higher level procurement professionalism

Table 30 - Outcomes of influence & professionalism

Influence & professionalism Facilitation Barriers Uniqueness of individual

councils

Control own destiny The council style

Global discipline Engage staff for capability Budgetary requirements of staff numbers

Council structure Position procurement as a discipline of importance

Recognition of procurement as major percentage of income

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