Prompted by complaints from NSW state school customers,from early 2010,the author made legitimate complaints to the
NSW Premier,Ministers & parliamentarians
NSW Dept.of Education
NSW Dept.of Finance & Services (formerly DSTA)
Auditor General (Peter Achterstraat)
NSW Ombudsman
Independent Commission Against Corruption
and other senior agency officers concerning the NSW Procurements Workplace Supplies Tender c1006 which abjectly failed to deliver the required “best price/ best value for money” benefits to “hostage” customers such as NSW State Schools.
Under the Premier’s memorandum 2006/11
https://arp.nsw.gov.au/m2006-11-nsw-procurement-reforms
NSW State Schools were forced to purchase from state contracts regardless of those contracted products failing “best value for money / best prices” criteria required under NSW procurement policies.
It was well documented that NSW Procurement is defective and a waste of tax payers funds.The Australian newspaper did an investigation and published an article titled:
Jul 12, 2010 – Schools fleeced as red tape leads to waste …
The author did not seek to be a supplier to the Workplace Supplies Tender c1006 as at first assessment,the tender did not require a requirement to supply educational scientific equipment:
The tender description specifically states:
Lot 4 – Educational Supplies (e.g. Arts and crafts, music, games, globes, learning tools)
with no reference to scientific instruments or equipment.
As incumbent suppliers were those “successful” contractors,this reeked of favouritism / unfair tendering practices.Those incumbent contractors appeared to have an “unfair” advantage by fore knowledge of what was in the tender (maybe even proposing the products themselves at the initial contract proposal).Of concern is that one of the two successful contractors,Corporate Express,had no obvious history in providing scientific products previously .
In the Request for Tender document,Lot4b Scientific accounted for 2 pages in a 240 page tender without listing the products required.Over 800 items were later included by the commencement of the tender in 2010 (but again,not specified within the tender) these 800+ products were included WITHOUT PRODUCT TESTING or PROVIDING THE ADVANTAGE OF BULK / QUANTITY PRICING (how many schools buy only 1 test tube???)
This tender made many incumbent contract suppliers very rich at the expense of vulnerable NSW State Schools.
It is the author’s opinion that such alleged blatant negligence, maladminstration,non-feasance,misconduct (and more) was effectively abuse of NSW State Schools & their students by morally bankrupt agencies such as the NSW Dept.of Education (a member of the State Contracts Control Board).In particular the alleged corrupt Paul Hopkins,Chief Procurement Officer,NSW Dept.of Education was associated with this issue.
Remember this was the time the government commissioned a review of education which was chaired by businessman David Gonski.The review panel received more than 7,000 submissions, visited 39 schools, and consulted 71 education groups across Australia.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-27/whats-in-the-gonski-report/4219508
Gonski’s report said funding needed to be increased by about $5 billion per year across all schooling sectors.
Yet blatant & abject procurement failures such as the 2010 Workplace Supplies tender c1006 was effectively forcing NSW State Schools to waste their meager budgets on overpriced and in many cases inferior products required for teaching students.
Also it should be known that NSW Procurement skimmed over $5million in “sales commissions” from the Workplace Supplies Tender c1006 and established monopoly suppliers within at least one tender sub-Lot.
The author made a complaint to ICAC but David Ipp refused to investigate stating that the tender was publicly published publicly.This was quite disappointing particularly when ICAC later published their report Corruption rife in NSW procurement
https://www.smh.com.au/national/corruption-rife-in-nsw-procurement-icac-20110714-1hf52.html
This tender reeked of serious misconduct especially as Lot4b,purported to have “competition” by the inclusion of two (incumbent) suppliers was in fact one incumbent supplier with a monopoly for Lot4b (Serrata Pty Ltd was supplying Corporate Express a majority of their tendered products (understood to be over 95%).
There is also the matter of the NSW Dept.of Education’s Procurement Directorate’s SmartBuy participation where they are alleged to have directed and allegedly forced NSW state schools to buy products not on contract from the incumbent suppliers (which “sales commissions” were being skimmed off by the agency)
The Procurement Directorate,NSW Dept.of Education,under the leadership of the alleged corrupt Paul Hopkins and later the alleged corrupt Jo Bailey,are also alleged to have continued this alleged maladminstration, serious misconduct with their further procurement activities which will be documented.