Report Card — September 21, 2005

Acquisitions

On September 21, 2004, Minister Brison gave his strategic vision speech for delivering services smarter, faster and at a reduced cost.
Budget 2005 confirmed that our goal is to find $2.5 billion in efficiencies over the next five years by using better planning, leveraging the government's purchasing power and using electronic tools to make purchasing easier and quicker.

As an initial step to capture savings, standing offers for 10 commodity areas were made mandatory on April 1, 2005. We've already seen an increase of about 17 per cent overall in the use of mandatory standing offers.
Savings have already been achieved on some of our purchases, such as 25 or 30 per cent on office furniture and 20 per cent on computers. We have also seen an increase of 35 per cent in use on our professional services contracts by client departments from April to June of this year, resulting in savings of 10 per cent and more over commercial prices.

Bill C-43 came into effect on June 29, 2005, giving the Minister of PWGSC responsibility for procurement of goods and services for the federal government, to enter into contracts on behalf of the government and to guarantee volume purchases.

The Office of Small and Medium Enterprises (OSME) was launched on September 19, 2005. OSME has already begun identifying issues of importance to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and developing its mandate and action plan to respond to those issues.
Regional workshops, starting in Halifax on September 23, will be held to identify and discuss ways to address SME issues related to changes the government introduced in Budget 2005 regarding how it purchases goods and services.

We are working with departments and agencies to gain a fuller understanding of their purchasing needs and methods. To date, we have completed spend analyses for 17 departments and are continuing to work with other departments. With this information, we will be in a better position to negotiate lower prices for those goods and services most needed by departments and agencies.

We have already established five commodity councils and eleven commodity teams to determine the right balance in our purchasing decisions among factors such as efficiency, effectiveness and the effects on small and regionally based businesses.

We are developing a prototype of the Government of Canada Marketplace (GoCM). Designed to simplify the purchase of goods and services and reduce costs, GoCM will be a bilingual on-line tool for government employees to have a single point of access to purchase goods and services through electronic catalogues.

We are seeing a reduction in travel spending as a result of increased use of the government's on-line booking tool for travel, negotiation of lower airfare rates, and tracking of outstanding travel credits. For example, we negotiated a corporate travel agreement including airfare discounts with WestJet for all departments and agencies participating in the STSI.