1. Training and management of procurement staff
1. Training of government procurement staff
Government procurement staff must have the following basic qualities:
First, theoretical level. Government procurement staff have a high theoretical level, which is mainly manifested in being able to grasp and flexibly apply the basic principles of economics, be proficient in the principles and knowledge of finance, taxation and government procurement, be familiar with economic laws and regulations, have a strong sense of reform and development, and be skilled in using them to analyze and solve problems.
second, professional knowledge and business skills. Government procurement involves a wide range, involving many links such as bidding, bid award, performance management, etc. At the same time, it also requires a deep and detailed understanding of market conditions, the characteristics of goods and services. This is a highly technical matter, which requires high professional knowledge and business skills of government procurement personnel. Only with corresponding business accomplishment and skills can they be competent for this work. The professional knowledge and business skills of government procurement mainly include: first, we must be proficient in the basic theory of government procurement, bidding theory and basic knowledge of engineering and technology; Second, we must master the practical operation technology of government procurement; Third, we should know the specific requirements of the government for government procurement in different periods; Fourth, we should master the basic knowledge of social science and natural science, and keep abreast of the latest scientific and technological achievements and various market information in various disciplines.
government procurement requires high quality of its employees, so it requires the government procurement center to conduct necessary training and assessment for its employees, and strengthen the theoretical knowledge, professional knowledge and business skills of procurement personnel, so as to better complete the government procurement work. This is also a common practice all over the world.
in addition, due to the high requirements of government procurement for procurement personnel in all aspects, the government procurement center not only strengthens training for procurement personnel, but also adopts the method of establishing an expert database in all aspects, and invites experts to provide necessary consultation and guidance when necessary.
2. Management of government procurement staff
Government procurement staff represent the government in all kinds of procurement and have great power, so it is necessary to strengthen the management of procurement staff. The management of procurement personnel in the procurement center should mainly start with the construction of the following systems.
first, the operation control system. In the procurement work, each link of the procurement is separated, and the assembly line is implemented, and each has its own responsibilities. When the previous link is handed over to the next link, the legality of this link must be guaranteed in writing. When signing a contract, people of different levels sign contracts with different amounts. The larger the contract amount, the higher the position of the contractor is required.
second, the qualification certification system. Government procurement personnel must undergo formal training, and qualified personnel are qualified to carry out government procurement work after being registered by the procurement authority. This is an important content to ensure the basic quality of government procurement personnel and manage government procurement personnel. Take the United States as an example. Some organizations in the United States provide the titles of government procurement personnel qualification certification: professional public procurement officer (P.P.B.) and registered public procurement officer (C.P.P.O.), which are specially established to meet the needs of government or quasi-government procurement personnel. Both the P.P.B. and C.P.P.O. qualification certification programs are managed by the Public Procurement Certification Council, which is a certification body jointly established by the National Government Procurement Institute and the National Association of State Procurement Officials. The third certification title is C.P.M., which is provided by the National Purchasing Management Association. C.P.M. has been officially recognized as the professional standard of other purchasing organizations, including the National Purchasing Institute and the National Association of Education Buyers. Other titles include registered professional contract manager and registered assistant contract manager awarded by the National Contract Management Association, and registered professional logistics engineer awarded by the Association of Logistics Engineers.
third, the punishment system. In order to strengthen the management of procurement personnel, many countries have also formulated a code of conduct for government procurement personnel, and at the same time severely punished violations of law and discipline. As stipulated by relevant laws in Singapore, bribery officials will be sentenced to seven years' imprisonment. The Interim Measures for the Administration of Government Procurement formulated by China's Ministry of Finance also clearly stipulates the legal responsibilities of procurement personnel.
second, bidding management
competitive bidding procurement is one of the most commonly used ways of government procurement, and it has a complete and unified procedure, which will not be much different because of different countries, regions and organizations. A complete competitive bidding process consists of bidding, tendering, bid opening, bid evaluation, calibration and contract signing.
1. Bidding
Bidding procedures include preparing bidding documents, issuing bidding notice, prequalification, selling bidding documents and other steps. If the bidding is conducted through the agency of the tendering agency, it will also go through the process of selecting the agency by the procurement center and verifying its qualification certificate.
(1) Preparation of bidding documents
The bidding documents can clarify the nature of the goods and projects to be purchased, inform the bidding rules and procedures, and inform the conditions for concluding the contract. Therefore, it is not only the basis for bidders to prepare bidding documents, participate in bidding and bid evaluation, but also the basis for signing contracts. Bidding documents play a vital role in the whole bidding process, and the preparation of bidding documents is a key link, which directly affects the quality and progress of procurement. When compiling the bidding documents, special attention should be paid to: first, the contents of all goods, equipment or projects to be purchased must be explained in detail to form the basis of competitive bidding; Second, the formulation of technical specifications and contract terms should not cause prejudice or discrimination against qualified bidders; Third, the evaluation criteria specified in the document should be open and reasonable, and the evaluation criteria for bids that deviate from the bidding documents and put forward new technical specifications should be more realistic and strive for fairness; Fourth, it must comply with the relevant regulations of the domestic government.
(2) Issuing the tender announcement
All public tenders shall be issued with the tender announcement. Issuing the tender announcement means the official start of the tender procedure. Whether the tender announcement is effective or not is directly related to the degree of competition and transparency of the tender and whether it discriminates against potential bidders. The tender announcement shall be published through newspapers or other media. Usually, a bidding procurement project often needs to publish bidding announcements from several channels at the same time to make the bidding competitive to the greatest extent. Leave enough time from the announcement to the bidding, so that the bidder has enough time to prepare the bidding documents.
(3) Pre-qualification
Whether a bidder has the ability to perform the procurement contract or whether its bid is true is directly related to whether the procurement can be carried out smoothly and whether the procurement purpose can be truly realized. Therefore, the prequalification of bidders is very necessary. Pre-qualification can narrow the scope of bidders, avoid unqualified bidders from doing invalid work, reduce their unnecessary expenses, and also reduce the workload of purchasing units, save time and expenses and improve work efficiency. The content of prequalification includes two parts: basic prequalification and professional prequalification. Basic qualifications refer to the legal status and reputation of suppliers or contractors, including whether they are registered, bankrupt, and have violated laws and regulations. Professional qualification refers to the ability of suppliers or contractors who have basic qualifications to perform the projects to be purchased, including: the experience of prequalification applicants and their previous performance in completing similar contracts; Financial situation; Information on the personnel provided for the performance of the contract; Machinery, equipment and comprehensive construction capacity equipped to perform the contract tasks; Network distribution and personnel structure of after-sales maintenance service, etc.
(4) Bidding documents for sale
After prequalification, the bidding documents can be directly sold to prequalified suppliers or contractors. After the tender documents are sold, they will not be returned. Except for force majeure, the tender shall not be terminated after the tender documents are sold, or after the tender is issued or the tender application is issued. The tender documents can be sold by post or by the purchaser or his agent. If it is sent by mail, the buyer shall be required to inform the procurement center after receiving the bidding documents.
2. Bidding
After the bidding procedure is completed, the procurement will be in the bidding stage. These two aspects are essentially two aspects of a process, and their specific procedures and steps are usually connected and corresponding to each other. In the bidding stage, the bidding preparation, preparation of bidding documents and submission of bidding documents are generally required. Obviously, the main body of bidding operation is the bidder; In the bidding stage, the main body of its operation is the procurement center or bidding agency.
the procurement center shall not open and return the bidding documents received after the deadline for submission of bidding documents, and all the bidding documents received shall be signed for the record. The bidder has the right to request the procurement center to provide the receipt certificate. A bidder may withdraw, supplement or modify the submitted bid documents, but it shall notify the procurement center in writing before the deadline for submission of bid documents.
generally speaking, there is a strict deadline for bidding. However, under the following special circumstances, the procurement center may appropriately extend the validity period of the bid: first, in the case of delaying the clarification or modification of the tender documents or the issuance of the minutes of the bidder's meeting, the procurement agency must make a decision to postpone the bid; Secondly, if one or more suppliers or contractors are unable to submit their bid documents before the deadline due to any circumstances beyond their control, the procurement agency is free to decide whether to extend the deadline. The extension decision must be made before the bidding deadline, and the procurement center shall promptly issue an extension notice to each supplier or contractor who has purchased the bidding documents. No matter when it is required to extend the validity of the bid, the bidder shall not be required or allowed to change the quotation or other bidding conditions. The bidder has the right to refuse the request of the procurement center to extend the validity period of the bid, and its deposit should not be confiscated; However, for those bidders who are willing to extend the validity of the bid, they should be required to extend the term of the bid bond accordingly.
3. bid opening
bid opening is when the tender documents are officially unsealed and announced. The bid opening shall be conducted in an open manner in accordance with the time, place and procedures specified in the tender documents. The bid opening shall be presided over by the procurement center, and members of the bid evaluation committee, representatives of bidders and representatives of relevant units shall be invited to attend. Before the bid opening, the sealing of the bid documents should be checked in an open way. After it is confirmed, the relevant staff will open it in public, verify the bidding qualification, and read out the bidder's name, bid price and other main contents. At the time of bid opening, bidders may be allowed to make necessary explanations for ambiguities in the bid documents, but the explanations shall not go beyond the scope recorded in the bid documents or change the substantive contents of the bid documents.
bid opening records shall be made for bid opening, which include: project name, tender number, date of publication of tender notice, date of sale of tender documents, name of the unit that purchased the tender documents, name and quotation of bidders, and handling of bids received after the deadline, etc.
in some cases, the time of bid opening can be postponed or postponed. For example, after the tender documents are sold, the original tender documents are changed or supplemented; Before the bid opening, it is found that there are illegal or improper behaviors that can affect the fairness of procurement; There is an unexpected accident; Change or cancel the purchase plan, and so on.
4. Bid evaluation
Bid evaluation refers to the evaluation and comparison of tenders to select the most favorable tender. The procurement center is responsible for setting up the bid evaluation committee. The bid evaluation committee is composed of representatives of the tenderee and experts in technology, economy and law hired by them, and the total number is generally an odd number of more than 5 people, of which the employed experts shall not be less than 2/3. Persons who have an interest in the bidder shall not enter the bid evaluation committee.
normally, bid evaluation is divided into two aspects: commercial evaluation and technical evaluation. The purpose of commercial evaluation is to evaluate the rationality and reliability of bidding quotation from the aspects of cost, finance and economic analysis, and to estimate the different economic effects after the award to each bidder. The purpose of technical review is to confirm the technical ability of the selected winning bidder to complete this project subject to tender and the feasibility and reliability of the scheme provided. Different from qualification evaluation, the focus of technical evaluation is to evaluate how the bidder will implement this project subject to tender.
Generally, the following methods are adopted in bid evaluation:
First, the bid evaluation method takes price as the only measure. When purchasing commodities with simple technical specifications, raw materials, semi-finished products and goods with the same or easily comparable performance and quality, price can be taken as the only factor to be considered in bid evaluation.
the second is the comprehensive bid evaluation method. That is, the bid evaluation method based on price and other factors. This bid evaluation method can be used when purchasing durable goods (such as vehicles) and other important equipment.
the third is the bid evaluation method based on life cycle cost. When the subsequent expenses (spare parts, oil, fuel, maintenance, etc.) of the whole plant, production line or equipment and vehicles to be purchased during the operation period are high, this method can be used for bid evaluation.
the fourth is the scoring method. Many factors are usually considered in bid evaluation. In order to facilitate comprehensive consideration and comparison, we can determine the proportion of these factors in bid evaluation according to their importance, that is, score each factor. The factors to be considered, the distribution of scores and the scoring criteria should be clearly stipulated in the tender documents when evaluating bids by scoring method.
5. calibration and contract signing
the behavior of the procurement center to determine the winning bidder from the candidates recommended by the bid evaluation Committee is calibration. The successful bidder shall meet one of the following conditions: meeting the requirements of the tender documents, and taking into account various preferential and tax factors, the lowest bid price is quoted under reasonable conditions; Best able to meet the comprehensive evaluation criteria specified in the tender documents.
after the bid is determined, other bidders who have not won the bid shall be notified when the bid-winning notice is sent to the successful bidder, and the deposit shall be refunded in time. The procurement center and the winning bidder shall sign a written contract in accordance with the provisions of the tender documents and the results of winning the bid, and issue a notice of contract award.
there are two specific ways to sign a contract: first, send the contract text to the winning bidder at the same time as the letter of acceptance, and let it sign and return it within a specified time (usually 31 days); Second, after receiving the letter of acceptance, the successful bidder will send someone to sign the contract within the specified time. In the latter case, before the contract is signed, it is allowed to clarify some immaterial technical or commercial issues, but the bidder shall not be required to undertake the obligations not specified in the bidding documents, nor shall there be any bid-cutting behavior.
after the contract is signed and the successful bidder submits the performance bond as required, the contract comes into effect and the procurement work enters the contract implementation stage. At this point, the pure bidding activities can be declared over. However, the management activities of the procurement center have not ended, and the performance of the contract will be managed in the future.
iii. performance and management of contracts
the performance and management of procurement contracts is the link of the final implementation and realization of procurement activities. After a * * * understanding is reached between the procurement center and the supplier, the two parties sign the contract, which has legal effect and enters the performance stage of the contract. The performance of the contract is the decisive stage in the whole procurement process, and the good or bad performance of the contract determines the success or failure of the whole procurement. Therefore, in the stage of supplier's performance of the contract, the contract must be managed.
contract management means that after the contract is confirmed, the procurement center pays close attention to the progress of contract performance at any time and conducts supervision and review on the implementation of the contract. When some new situations occur, adjust and deal with the contract, such as modification, suspension, cancellation and termination of the contract, so as to ensure the interests of procurement and avoid further losses.
Contract modification refers to the modification of contract terms proposed by any party to the contract due to changes in circumstances or new procurement requirements. The modification of the contract can be made by