The Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman, Bruce Billson, has announced an inquiry into the impact of Commonwealth procurement rule reforms on small businesses.
This inquiry was referred to the Ombudsman by the Minister for Finance, Katy Gallagher. The review will examine the effectiveness of AusTender, the Commonwealth Contracting Suite, methods for identifying small businesses, and other measures to enable small businesses to join together to bid for larger contracts.
The Australian Government awarded $80.8 billion in procurement contracts in 2021-22, of which 30.8% or just under $25 billion by value, was awarded to small and medium-sized enterprises. Mr Billson noted that while it’s great to see the government’s commitment to be a bigger customer for small businesses, identifying and securing Commonwealth procurement contracts can be complex, costly, confusing, and time-consuming for small and family businesses.
Mr Billson said that supporting the opportunity for small and family businesses to compete for and fully participate in supplying the goods and services the Australian Government needs is essential to ensure full value for money, vitality in the economy, support for local businesses to scale and can enable innovation. He added that where there are procurement impediments, it can diminish opportunities to encourage entrepreneurship and competition and means the taxpayer and the nation may not be getting the most value for money.
“It is timely to examine how the system is working for small and family businesses, the role procurement rules are playing to support small business participation, and what lessons and improvements can be made,” said Mr Billson.
“We want to identify those departments and agencies who are exemplars in providing procurement opportunities to small businesses and celebrate this success and help others to emulate it. Similarly, we seek to shine a light on those whose dealings with small business are poor.”
The Ombudsman is inviting written submissions from small businesses and other interested parties until July 1, 2023, and intends to release an issues paper. A final report with recommendations will be given to the Australian Government in December. Mr Billson said the review will seek to identify additional changes to Commonwealth procurement rules and processes to boost small business participation.
He specifically expressed concern about how small businesses can know about and tender for government contracts, saying: “We want to look at what support is given to small businesses to navigate what can be a complicated procurement process.”
He added that in some cases, small businesses are deterred by a feeling that there is a ‘closed shop’ while in other cases, they simply don’t know about the opportunities available, or the size of the contract can be simply too big. Mr Billson said he particularly wanted to determine whether capacity-building contracts were being offered that would enable smaller businesses to benefit from the contracts to grow their business.
Written submissions from small businesses and other interested parties should be emailed to inquiries@asbfeo.gov.au by 1 July 2023.
