************************************************************
The Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO) today (March 15) published a consultation paper inviting views from the Information Technology (IT) industry on the procurement arrangement of government IT professional services.
"The Government always aims to facilitate the IT industry to introduce and deliver quality professional services to departments. Given the rapid changes in IT and its service market, it is imperative that procurement of such services should be efficient, responsive and able to provide timely solutions to address the business and operational needs of departments," a spokesman for OGCIO said.
Since 1994, the Government has adopted a bulk supply arrangement to enable the IT industry to provide professional services to government departments more efficiently. Under the arrangement, the Government enters into a number of standing offer agreements (SOAs) with suppliers that have been selected through open tendering for the provision of IT professional services in different categories. The SOAs are non-exclusive contractual agreements with a uniform set of terms and conditions. Within the validity period of the SOAs, departments may invite proposals for individual IT projects from contractors in the relevant service categories and select the contractors to undertake assignments based on technical and price assessments. This two-stage competition process enhances efficiency in procurement as departments need not go through lengthy tendering for each and every acquisition.
The present SOA arrangement, the Standing Offer Agreement for Quality Professional Services 2, took effect in July 2009 and will expire in July 2013. Up to December 2011, services covering all stages of system development from feasibility studies to systems maintenance drawn under the agreement amounted to over 500 projects.
"Prior to developing a new SOA arrangement to succeed the existing one, OGCIO is conducting a review to explore ways to improve the present arrangement. We hope to consult the industry as their views and suggestions are crucial to drawing up a new enhanced procurement arrangement," the spokesman said.
The consultation paper describes the present arrangement and lists out issues and areas for potential improvement that have been identified through feedback from contractors, the industry and government departments. These include the categorisation of services and suppliers, length of contracts, categorisation of human resources, sub-contracting and others. The paper also provides some initial analysis of the improvement options available to seek views from the industry.
The OGCIO will make reference to the views collected in establishing the new procurement arrangement.
The consultation paper can be downloaded from the OGCIO website at www.ogcio.gov.hk/en/news_and_publications/consultations. A briefing session on the consultation will be held in end March. Interested parties may refer to the consultation paper for details.
Comments and suggestions can be sent to OGCIO by e-mail to soaqps2_review@ogcio.gov.hk, by fax to 2574 3670, by post or by hand to 6/F, North Point Government Offices, 333 Java Road, North Point, Hong Kong. The consultation will end on April 11, 2012.
Ends/Thursday, March 15, 2012
Issued at HKT 15:59
NNNN
