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Keep up to date with conversations that are happening across the public sector that focus on procurement. We welcome your feedback and suggestions for stories to include in upcoming editions.

June 2025

In this newsletter:

• A new leader for NZGP
• Journeys with GETS – The University of Otago’s Body Bequest database
• Focus on Procurement interviews Martin Richardson, of Audit New Zealand, and Liz Palmer, of New Zealand Government Procurement
• The future of our graduate programme
• Procure Connect prepares to go live
• Online Panel Directory is closing down
• Op-ed: Karen English on data
• Events
• Notices

A new leader for NZGP 

Michael Alp, the incoming General Manager of New Zealand Government Procurement is looking forward to working across the sector.

“Procurement has inherent qualities that other disciplines can utilise. In some respects, procurement can be the perfect ‘cross function’ connector for organisations,” says Michael.

Michael Alp, incoming General Manager of New Zealand Government Procurement.

PHOTO: SUPPLIED

Journeys with GETS: The University of Otago's Body Bequest Database

This is a series of in-depth stories into fascinating projects on GETS.

Warning: This story details what happens to peoples’ bodies once they’ve died if they have bequeathed their body to the University of Otago. Some details may be sensitive for some readers.

Building a body bequest system to manage the most precious resource we have. 

New Zealand’s first university and medical school is rebuilding its body bequest database.

The University of Otago has used GETS to recreate a database to provide its medical students with one of the most valuable teaching tools they will ever access – cadavers.

Mark Caldwell, the university’s Category Specialist from its Procurement Office says the project has just got underway with a vendor selected, contracts agreed, and the project team identifying milestones and timelines for development and deployment. 

Building a body bequest system to manage the most precious resource we have 

Focus on People in Procurement: Martin Richardson and Liz Palmer

This month Focus on Procurement was privileged to interview Martin Richardson, Director of Specialist Audit and Assurance Services and Liz Palmer, Head of Procurement Capability and Systems at NZGP.

Martin talks about the impact leadership can have on procurement teams, the 3 things the public do not know about how procurement impacts their lives, and what Martin would do for procurement if he had a magic wand.

Interview with Martin.

PHOTO: SUPPLIED

Liz talks about her journey into procurement, leadership, and her role in the application of digital and data in New Zealand Government Procurement. 

Interview with Liz.

PHOTO: NZGP

The future of our graduate programme

Last year, we shared our intention to work with the system to develop a sustainable, long-term solution for NZGP’s graduate programme. 

Expert Procurement Solutions Ltd. (EPS) is currently working with us to deliver the programme until 2026. We’re now excited to take the next step and are seeking to partner with a supplier to deliver the programme for 2026 and 2027. 

We’ve been working with agencies and key stakeholders to explore options for the future. Agencies told us they want to maintain the graduate programme as a pipeline for procurement talent in government and that we need more graduates across the system. Working with an external supplier will enable us to achieve this objective.

We’ve published a request for proposal (RFP) on GETS to find a supplier who shares our vision for growing early talent and building a future-ready government procurement workforce. 

In the meantime, if you have any questions about the future of the programme, get in touch with us. And if you are interested in hosting a graduate for 2026, email the Graduate Programme Manager.

Procure Connect prepares to go live

We expect to launch the External Legal Services (ELS) contract on Procure Connect in July. 

Later in June, we’ll send agency IT teams and agency administrators the information they need to start using ELS in Procure Connect. Keep an eye out for comms and opportunities to engage over the coming weeks.

Feedback and observations from this first group of users will help make Procure Connect the best it can be.

It will also help plan the migration of subsequent AoG panels. 

Thanks again to all those who are helping us and for coming on the journey.

Online Panel Directory is closing down

Due to circumstances outside of our control, the platform hosting the Online Panel Directory (OPD) is closing down in September 2025. 

After the External Legal Services contract moves to Procure Connect in July, OPD will host 5 All-of-Government (AoG) contracts. We’re moving these 5 remaining AoG contracts from OPD to the NZGP procurement website, where agencies will be able to access the contract panels until they are moved to Procure Connect. 

The process of accessing panel information on the NZGP website will be similar to how your agency currently accesses other AoG contracts. We’ll let you know once this temporary solution is in place and give you the help you need to continue using the provider panels as before. 

We’re continuously working on improving our digital services to make procurement easier for both agencies and suppliers. We understand this means a lot of change for agencies over the next while and this can be challenging. We’re here to help. If you have any questions, reach out to your Account Manager or email us. 

The op-ed section

Welcome to our opinion series. This month’s writer is Karen English, Director of International Procurement and Trade at NZGP

I read a headline that New Zealand had slipped to fourth place in the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index and I was horrified! 

I wasn’t totally surprised because we slipped to third place in the 2023 survey, the first time since 2012 that we weren’t number one or number two. 

I pay attention to these surveys as they measure among other things, New Zealand’s government procurement policy. Maybe I just love to hold the moral high ground, maybe I see the reputation of a country as a big deal, or maybe commentary on the performance of the public service is commentary on me, you and the work we do.

I would probably be more sanguine about this score if it was a singular survey, but I read another article that pointed out New Zealand’s drop across a number of international indices. In fact, I input into the World Bank B-READY Survey, formerly Ease of Doing Business survey, where we used to rank at or near the top and was taken aback by the results. The B-Ready survey is complicated, and I don’t pretend that I’m knowledgeable in deciphering the results. It shows performance across defined topics and pillars, rather than rolling up the data into an overall score. Procurement features in the “competition” topic and we scored 9 out of 33 under the heading “bidding for public contracts”! Our overall competition score is lower than Georgia and Rwanda.

It’s quite a mission to try to dig into the various indicators that make up the score. I know the score on these surveys is contingent on what is being counted towards a good score, where the data has come from and what is being used to validate the data. The B-Ready survey used various data sources, but I do wonder if part of the problem is the quality of New Zealand’s procurement data. I personally complete many international surveys on government procurement and I frequently run across questions where I have to respond “this information is not centrally collected”. 

So, all is well, right? We are still ok. We just can’t prove it. But shouldn’t we be able to? In this age where data rules, I fear procurement’s contribution to these surveys will see New Zealand’s rankings continue to slide.

What can or are we doing about our data performance and why should we care? Musings on that next time.

Events

• AI Contracting Week 2025

            June 24-25

            AI Contracting Week 2025: WorldCC

• CIPS Asia Excellence in Procurement and Supply Awards

             July 8 to July 10

             CIPS Awards

• Melbourne WorldCC Connect

             July 24

             Melbourne WorldCC Connect (In-person Event): WorldCC

• The 5th Annual Sustainable Procurement and ESG Conference

            Conferences and Events

Notices

Procurement Rules update

Thanks again to everyone who responded to the public consultation over March and April. There was a high volume of feedback and we’ve considered it all. We anticipate Cabinet decisions in late June/early July. Once Cabinet approves, we will publish the new Rules. We anticipate a 6-month period before they take effect. Over this time we‘ll support agencies, including through a series of webinars and hui to help agencies with implementation.

A word from your editor

Thank you so much for reading Focus on Procurement. We appreciate hearing from you and what you’d like to read here so please send your comments to procurement@mbie.govt.nz. 

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