Member Article

Earlier this year, the Inquiry regarding Procurement Services published its opinion "The future for the Procurement Assistance". The Inquiry’s mission is to propose how procurement assistance should be coordinated in order to increase competence, availability, consistency and visibility for procurement market participants. Delphi support suggestion for a new Procurement Authority to be founded  Partner Anna Ulfsdotter Forssell and associate Sara-Li Olovsson shortly summarize Delphi’s comments on the proposal circulated for consideration below.

The Inquiry is of the opinion that the coordinated procurement assistance shall be organized in a new single-purpose agency, the Procurement Assistance Agency. The agency shall, in addition to having the responsibility for the coordinated procurement services, be able to provide a number of different assisting functions regarding public procurement. Delphi supports the suggestion to establish a new Procurement Assistance Agency. The main reason for this is that it is important to separate the Swedish Competition Authority’s assignment to function as a supervisory authority and the assignment to provide procurement assistance, and that the visibility will increase if a new agency for the current matter is founded.

Delphi also believes that all procurement assistance need to be gathered in order to facilitate finding relevant procurement assistance, which currently is divided between several actors. In distinction from the Inquiry, Delphi is thus of the opinion that the Swedish Environmental Management Council’s functions (Sw: AB Svenska Miljöstyrningsrådet), as well as the Swedish Innovation Agency’s (Sw: Vinnova) and the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth’s (Sw: Tillväxtverket) procurement functions, shall be integrated in the new agency.