This ’case’ of council e-Tender through a TMP is one step in the process of creating a better understanding of tender as an essential process in the provision of community services. E-Tender is the mechanism of procurement and the TMP is the integrating process of bringing the buyer (council) together with suppliers (sellers) in a technology environment. The remnants of traditional tender exist within statutes, the historic rhetoric of personnel and even symbolic tender boxes. TMP technology is advancing into areas of operations of forums and evaluation, re-intermediating process and creating opportunity for the drive to assimilation and effectiveness.
The barriers are discussed in two forms: the consolidated practice barriers are named with the descriptive from the institutional barriers as an integrating step to institutional
pressures and resistance in the next chapter.
(i) Adoption - entrenched within the original adoption purpose. The TMP created its own space with a step from hard copy paper to the opportunity for full e-Tender. The TMPs non-threatening nature allowed an easy initial adoption decision as a follow on from industry assimilation. This
widespread appeal of simplicity of TMP operation and the political push of e-Government allowed the TMP to emerge as the application of choice. All seven councils have adopted at least one TMP, three councils adopting two and one council adopting seven. There is no evidence of continuing
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review for consideration of further adoption of TMPs within a wider degree of assimilation.
(ii) Assimilation 1 – No recognition of a need to re-structure procurement from an administrative function to a strategic element. The capability of the TMPs used by the seven councils range from basic functionality through to contemporary edge technology. The most striking point of assimilation is two business unit users who have fully assimilated a TMP to electronic evaluation level. This is an indication of a practitioner’s wider breadth of understanding and intention to advance technology within their own responsibilities. The resulting pattern from the executive interviewees displays a confused position with tender ranging from retaining status quo to some aspect of consideration towards a higher level of responsibility. (iii) Assimilation 2 – Executive strategy not driving operational performance
through technology. All councils reported numerous systems with varying degrees of interoperability with some councils extending their thinking to adoption of expansive ERP systems, a number of years into the future. Tender is not a futuristic process: it is a today process, a requirement to match buyers and sellers within a project management or business partnering authority. The monetary cost of tender is positioned in the profit and loss/balance sheet cash flow statements. TMP advanced technology is available. Two business unit users in different councils have initiated a pathway to operational effectiveness through this technology. None of the councils have a procurement or tender strategy.
(iv) Effectiveness – Movement beyond status quo is a journey too far. The rhetoric around tender is ‘out there’, someone else’s responsibility. Tender is a continuous process across councils ranging in monetary spend from near zero through to tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars. The monetary value of the transaction has no bearing on council personnel understanding their higher level responsibilities. Effectiveness is a measure of satisfaction: the community’s appreciation of council services. No council has any procurement or tender performance metric.
(v) Executive strategy 1 – Procurement not presented as an enabler for provision of community services. The community has an expectation of
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value from tender spend, a value not extended in community annual reports outside vague statements such as purchasing local; sixteen years after statutory promulgation. The monetary value is sitting in the profit and loss/balance sheet cash flow statements and the community value is extended to the region of the council, or maybe a far wider community. (vi) Executive strategy 2 – Tender policies and procedures marginalised by
perceived external influence and belief in statute complexity. A statement by one executive interviewee was behind every statute is a problem and the problem identified was corruption. Across the three states of the research project, there are volumes of statutes (applicable to a specific jurisdiction), commission reports, guidelines, LGA intention with a question of advocacy or commercial practice, the implications of new personnel and the rhetoric from within and external of council. Cognition of the influence outside satisfying compliance to the actual prescribed requirements of a statute, appears as a journey too far.
(vii) Executive Strategy 3 – Procurement not positioned within the hierarchical structure. The monetary value of tender spend is buried within the profit and loss/balance sheet cash flow statements of councils, transparent only within the perception of finance executives. The procurement department of the seven councils sits within a diversity of structures ranging from direct report to finance, indirect report to finance through one or more layers and to legal counsel sitting as floating executives. Tender is
somewhere in-between an administrative function and advisory to those who cannot meet their higher level responsibilities. Recognition of procurement as a discipline of value and importance will be an enabler to positioning with the hierarchical structure.
(viii) Executive strategy 4 – Procurement and risk management seen as
administrative tools without value. The tender monetary thresholds across all seven councils are aligned to statutory compliance and risk
management, although the use of the word management is a misnomer recognised across the executive interviewees. A simple statement of a monetary value between x and y being a factor of risk is an injustice to the discipline of risk management and does not account for the diversity of
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operational requirements or the actual or perceived degree of risk. Councils without a prescribed statutory requirement self-determine all thresholds. Risk management of thresholds adds to the rhetoric. (ix) Financial accountability 1 – Acceptance of what is: no motivation to
investigate improved financial outcomes. Budgets for projects and approval authorities all exist within councils, independent of the procurement department. The role of the procurement department is business partnering: the provision of the tools for business unit users to undertake tender as a value to the community. The research data has provided numerous irregularities across the tender spectrum including discussion on waste: a different matter to corruption. Factors of cost and personnel numbers impact discussion on investigating improved financial outcomes. The tender/income ratio as an average of all seven councils monetary value of tender spend sits at 57%42. As a generalised ratio, this ought to be sufficient motivation for all councils to position tender spend to a relationship with executive strategy, across Australia.
(x) Financial accountability 2 – Avoiding responsibility due to no penalty for ineffective practice. The value of tender spend across a council is not hidden, it is not implied, it is not lost in the machinations of accounting; it is sitting in the published financial reports, reports available on the council web site and reports provided to the statutory authority in the respective states. The financial executives interviewed know the data exists, it is not used as any form of indicator. Using this data is an enabler to position tender as a discipline of importance.