OECD Recommendation
Develop a procurement workforce with the capacity to continually deliver value for money efficiently and effectively.
- Ensure that procurement officials meet high professional standards for knowledge, practical implementation and integrity by providing a dedicated and regularly updated set of tools.
- Provide attractive, competitive and merit-based career options for procurement officials.
- Promote collaborative approaches with knowledge centres such as universities, think tanks or policy centres to improve skills and competences of the procurement workforce.
Related Principles
Challenges faced by the public procurement workforce include:
- Transition of public procurement from an ordering function to a more strategic function
- Complexity of public procurement rules
- The multidisciplinary nature of the public procurement profession
- The fact that public procurement is not yet always seen a profession
Country Cases
High professional standards for knowledge, practical implementation and integrity
- Certification of capabilities for procurement in the UK
- Certification of capabilities for procurement in the United States
- Code of Conduct for the Queensland (Australia) Public Service
- Integrity training in Germany
- Key initiatives to professionalise and empower the public procurement workforce in New Zealand Specialised training for public procurement in France
- Principles and code of conduct for procurement in Spain
- Setting clear ethical standards for procurement officials: The 2002 public procurement reform in Turkey
- The Anti-Corruption Strategy of the Austrian Federal Procurement Agency
- The Canadian Certification Program for the Federal Government Procurement and Materiel Management Communities
- The Code of Conduct for Procurement in Canada
- The Construction Industry Ethics and Compliance Initiative in the United States
- The Scottish procurement competency framework
- The UK infrastructure procurement routemap
- US House of Representatives ethics clauses for consultants
- Web-based interactive guide for cooperation in procurements in Sweden
Attractive, competitive and merit-based career options for procurement officials
- Inherently governmental and critical functions in the United States
- Positive work culture in the construction of Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 (UK)
- Staff rotation in the German civil service
Collaborative approaches with knowledge centres
Reviews
- Enhancing procurement capability in IMSS (extract of Public Procurement Review – IMSS, Mexico)
- Enhancing procurement capability in ISSSTE (extract of Public Procurement Review – ISSSTE, Mexico)
- Improving Lthuania's Public Procurement System - Implementation of professionalisation and certification frameworks
- Enhancing procurement capabilities of the Peruvian workforce (extract of Public Procurement in Peru)
Other institutions’ work on capacity
- Curbing Corruption in Public Procurement – A practical Guide, Transparency International (2014)
- Open Government Partnership
- Open Contracting Partnership
- Open Data Charter
- Procurement iNET