Debate: The need for procurement risk management

Improvement boards offer a new approach to supporting stronger performance by public service organizations, and especially those facing significant issues of change. They involve formalized peer challenge and support by senior politicians and managers from other agencies. The authors document early experiences with improvement boards in local government and draw conclusions for policy and practice. Improvement boards will have the most impact where the organization's leadership already has some understanding of the performance improvement task, and is able to position the board as part of a wider strategy for change.     

Debate: Public procurement needs outcome evaluations

This article considers public procurement papers presented at the recent annual conferences of the International Purchasing and Supply Education and Research Association (IPSERA). It reflects on whether the studies presented at IPSERA align with public procurement priorities. It identifies congruence between research and practice, but also areas in which research is leading practice, such studies of sourcing from low-cost countries, service delivery and risk management. Future trends in public procurement research are then discussed.     

Designing a public procurement strategy: lessons from local governments

Public sector procurement faces competing priorities, such as cost-efficiency, legal conformity, the advancement of environmental protection and the promotion of innovation. In addition, procurement departments are moving away from being mere organizational servants to having a strategic function. This paper looks at current public procurement strategy research, revealing neglected aspects. The authors propose a new analytical framework and suggest avenues for future research.     

Design of public procurement auctions: evidence from cleaning contracts

We analyze a regime change from beauty contests to first‐price sealed‐bid and scoring auctions, using Swedish data on public procurement of cleaning services. In beauty contests, the lowest bid often lost, leaving substantial money on the table. The procurement costs were similar before and after the regime change: (i) Entry strongly decreases the procurement cost but did not change. Entry would have decreased had the municipalities not adjusted the objects of auctions. (ii) Municipalities favored in‐house suppliers in the old regime, leading to more aggressive bidding by others. With favoritism reduced, these changes balanced each other out.     

Debate: Increasing the impact of academic research on public policy

Audit committees were perceived as overcoming the difficulties of operating in a political environment. In general, they achieved good ratings for monitoring internal audit but were seen as less effective in engaging with external auditors and risk management. In some key aspects the attitudes of internal auditors differed from those of committee chairs and CFOs.