By Liz Edwards | APS Academy
The APS Academy Craft and Learning branch is always looking for new ways to reinforce our commitment to improving procurement and contract management practices, and so, with this in mind, I attended the inaugural Department of Finance Procurement and Contract Management (CM) Conference, which was held over two days in November.
The themes of the conference were Integrity, Inclusion and Impact, and over 500 APS employees attended. It was a great way to celebrate the launch of the new Procurement and Contract Management Profession, and provided over 500 attendees with access to senior APS and Department of Finance executives, Australian National Audit Office representatives, industry specialists, APS employees and friends from Indo-Pacific countries. The conference opened with an address from Senator the Honourable Tim Ayres, Assistant Minister for Trade, and ended with the annual Procurement Awards, where the Secretary of Finance congratulated us all on our combined efforts to continue raising the bar with our procurement and contract management practices!
For those of you who don’t wade into the procurement space on a regular basis, you might be wondering why there is a need for an annual conference… in the last financial year, the APS spent $99 billion across 83,000 procurement contracts, which included everything from the purchase of socks, food, Australian Federal Police service animals, satellites and stationery, to APS Academy learning and development programs! As an APS Academy employee, I was very happy to hear people talk about us and our role in developing capability in this profession and we are all looking forward to seeing what the profession can assist us with next.
Find out more about what the Procurement and Contract Management profession (and other professions) can offer by registering your interest.
