Public Sector Procurement Workshop

Synthesizing leading global sources, this module explains how local procurement rules are shaped by a core body of international treaties, model laws, and governance benchmarks that serve as standards for measuring your organization’s procurement operations.

Highlighting a series of leading public audit and inquiry reports from across Canada, this module summarizes the transparency, open competition, and value-for-money standards that apply to public institutions in all stages of the public procurement process and provides practical compliance guidelines to help institutions prepare for their next audit review or bid protest challenge. This module also covers high-profile case studies dealing with politicized procurement, and explores the importance of establishing appropriate oversight mechanisms while avoiding improper interference in the public procurement cycle.

Surveying leading case law, statutory and industry developments in the area of conflict of interest and bid-rigging, this module addresses the importance of: (i) avoiding conflict of interest, unfair advantage, and bias in the bidding process; and (ii) establishing the necessary institutional safeguards to protect against kickbacks, collusion, and price-fixing in public sector tendering.

Surveying the conflict of interest and collusion risks impacting public procurement, this module covers unfair advantage, bias, collusion, and bid-rigging in the government procurement process with reference to the most recent case studies, legal rulings, and industry developments.

Analyzing the five inherent risk factors that lead to project failure, this module explains how optimism bias leads to flawed planning and failed project execution. This module also explains why public institutions need to implement long-term strategies to ensure competition in their supply chains and integrate proper design planning into their RFX drafting process. 

Synthesizing the leading global precedents that govern the bidding process, this module explains how public institutions are mitigating the risk of lost profit claims by phasing out Contract A formats and deploying negotiated RFPs. This module also covers the strict administrative law standards that regulate the government tendering process.

Covering the main tendering formats used in competitive bidding across Canada, this module compares and contrasts the Request for Quotation, Invitation to Tender, RFP, and Negotiated RFP formats, with a specific focus on the factors that inform the selection of consecutive and concurrent NRFP formats. 

Summarizing a series of leading case studies, this module sets down seven strategic principles for maintaining due process and procedural correctness in the design, drafting, and execution of negotiated RFPs. This module also demystifies the use of multi-stage concurrent dialogue RFPs and best-and-final-offer evaluation procedures.