Evidence of meeting #127 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was women.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
Kyle Peterson Liberal Newmarket—Aurora, ON
I appreciate that.
I know you said there were no set-asides for diverse suppliers or anything like that, but in your assessment, does supporting SMEs generally tend to support a diverse supplier pool in your country during your process? Are you helping groups that otherwise wouldn't be participating just by opening it up to SMEs as well?
11:45 a.m.
Deputy Director, Small Business Policy Team, Crown Commercial Service of the United Kingdom
I believe so. For me, the focus on diversity is good for the business world in the U.K. It drives competition. It means we are buying from a wider marketplace, which has to be good value for the taxpayer, businesses, and society alike.
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
Kyle Peterson Liberal Newmarket—Aurora, ON
I'm out of time, but I appreciate your insight. Thank you very much.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you very much.
We have Mr. McCauley for five minutes, please.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Great.
Again, thanks for all the information. It's proving very helpful.
Is there a process—I'm just curious—for people in the U.K. to access EU jobs? Do they have a similar portal that shows available work to bid on?
11:45 a.m.
Deputy Director, Small Business Policy Team, Crown Commercial Service of the United Kingdom
There is a similar portal. It's called TED, which I think stands for “tenders electronic daily”. That is the one place for all the EU jobs to be advertised, above the threshold.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Okay.
Is there not a lot of back-and-forth just because of the smaller size of the SME contracts? Do you think that's why EU people are not bidding on a lot of the ones that you were posting?
11:45 a.m.
Deputy Director, Small Business Policy Team, Crown Commercial Service of the United Kingdom
Possibly. To be honest, I don't know, I'm afraid.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Can you walk us through how you handle sole source contracts? What's the threshold, what's required to award sole source?
11:45 a.m.
Deputy Director, Small Business Policy Team, Crown Commercial Service of the United Kingdom
That's more an area for defence spending and not an area I'm familiar with, I'm afraid.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
In terms of a small business, you list a contract on your Contracts Finder, or a department comes forward and awards it, for certain reasons, without bidding. I assume you allow that? Or don't you allow that?
11:45 a.m.
Deputy Director, Small Business Policy Team, Crown Commercial Service of the United Kingdom
Oh, I see. I'm sorry, I misunderstood.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
11:45 a.m.
Deputy Director, Small Business Policy Team, Crown Commercial Service of the United Kingdom
I'm not entirely sure what the thresholds are for sole source, and we do regard best practice as being about running a competition.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Has it become a complaint issue at all among people bidding?
11:50 a.m.
Deputy Director, Small Business Policy Team, Crown Commercial Service of the United Kingdom
Yes and no. It's not high on the list of complaints. It does occasionally come up.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Okay.
What is your complaint resolution process over there? We have a procurement ombudsman who can handle complaints from people who believe a contract has been awarded incorrectly. It goes up to a certain threshold and then, of course, there's a different area. How do they do it on your side of the pond?
11:50 a.m.
Deputy Director, Small Business Policy Team, Crown Commercial Service of the United Kingdom
We have the mystery shopper process, but that's not a formal complaints resolution procedure. We don't have a procurement ombudsman in quite the same way, but there are a series of procedures set out through the public contracting regulations that have come from the EU and that set out how you go through the process of complaining.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Can you just walk us through it on a high level? Is that possible? What is the process?
11:50 a.m.
Deputy Director, Small Business Policy Team, Crown Commercial Service of the United Kingdom
I'm sorry, no, it's not something I can do.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Okay.
How long has the Contracts Finder existed? Is it a relatively new process? Has it been in process for a while?
11:50 a.m.
Deputy Director, Small Business Policy Team, Crown Commercial Service of the United Kingdom
The first iteration came in in 2011, and then it was completely rebuilt, as I said, for 2015. It's been developed under the agile methodology, so it's constantly being reiterated. It's been around for seven years or so.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
We have a very similar system, “buyandsell.gc.ca”. The U.S. has a program called GSA Advantage!, which almost mirrors an Amazon. If I'm looking for towels, I go and put in towels, and it brings up all the suppliers, and the prices are all listed. Have you considered that process, where, like their system, you go on and you choose, it prints out a purchase order, ensures payment, shows delivery date, and everything as opposed to a bidding process alone?
11:50 a.m.
Deputy Director, Small Business Policy Team, Crown Commercial Service of the United Kingdom
We're exploring this, yes. We're piloting something that internally we've been calling the crown marketplace. Externally, we're calling it the purchasing platform. It's very much in pilot stage, but it is essentially something along the lines of a model of Amazon for government. At the minute, I think the kinds of products on sale on it are mostly tech-related. It's something I believe my colleague Matt Denham has spoken about to some of your colleagues, possibly, or other parts of the Canadian government.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
You may not know this, but is there a specific reason why you're looking to, say, tech products right now? Does it just happen to be the area you chose for the pilot, or is it because there is simplicity, or the tech items have a lot more of a commodity pricing?