By  Teresa Scott, APCC director

The governments of Australia and the New Zealand Government are implementing collaborative strategies to build a larger and more capable pool of professional procurement talent. 

Under the auspices of the Australian Procurement and Construction Council (APCC) the public sector in Australia and New Zealand has recognised that the delivery of better quality procurement outcomes requires investment in the enhancement of skills and professionalism of procurement officers. 

Strategies have been identified that seek to attract people into procurement as a career and to develop the competencies and experience of existing procurement practitioners.

The APCC and its members, in a world first, have produced a government procurement capabilities standard through the release of the Building Government Procurement Capabilities and supplementary Aspirational Capability Matrix for Government Procurement Practitioners.

These aspirational documents provide direction on the development of public sector professionalism and capabilities as well as to set target benchmarks for Australian and New Zealand procurement workforces.  They describe a model that outlines the various procurement roles, and an aspirational public sector standard for these roles. The aspiration is based on the established approach by other professionals, such as accounting and engineering.

Government agencies should be able to set goals and targets for raising procurement capability and provide a career path to new professional procurement positions.

A PDF version of the Building Government Procurement Capabilities and supplementary Aspirational Capability Matrix for Government Procurement Practitioners are available for free download at the APCC website – www.apcc.gov.au