12:00 Wed 03 Apr 2007				REF:LZAXDQN1  

TO:	The Hon Jennifer RANKINE MP		cc	Interested Parties  
	Minister for State/Local Government Relations  
	SOUTH AUSTRALIAN PARLIAMENT  

	LOCAL GOV TENDERS AND ELECTRONIC TRANSACTION ACT  

Dear Minister - this is the third email in response to your letter   
03 Dec 2006 and provide you with an update on events stimulated   
by that letter - "The  Importance of the Electronic Transactions Acts   
[ETAs] for the Australian Information Economy"  

This email outlines how the tender process is developing in most  
States and the importance of confirming a single address format  
for the Australian eCommerce Standard AS 4590 on 22 Dec 2006 

A	Local Government tenders on State Government Websites  
B	Educating SMEs to appreciate importance ETAs  
C	Extract NSW Deed of Agreement Standard document  
D	Minimum Insurances preclude SMEs  
E	Next Steps  

A	LOCAL GOV TENDERS NOW ON STATE GOV WEB-SITES  

We have been recording tenders on the OTMG Tender Information  
Management Service [TIMS] since Jul 2000.  
 
In the last 7 years nearly 19,000 tenders been published on TIMS  

However as the Minister for State/Local Government Relations you   
will be interested in the recent analysis of how many Local Government  
tenders now appear on State Government websites.  

This appears to be emulating what is called in Europe "the Rothschilds 
Economic Pyramid Model" whereby the profit is consolidated at the top   
and the costs are spread over the base.  

Since Oct 2006 there has been a dramatic increase in Local  
Government tenders.  

In  2007 many of those Local Government tenders are now only listed   
on the State Contract Control Board [CCB] web sites.  

In South Australia even though most Local Government Agencies have  
a very professional web-site, each SA Council tender now appears on
the EDS State Website.   

Even more significant has been the increase in the number and size  
of the attachments for each website  

Here is an analysis of the size of the attachments for NSW Local  
Government tenders which are now published by the NSW Department   
of Commerce web site on Tue 20 Mar 2007.  

There were 61 NSW Local Government Tenders published as Department  
of Commerce and Department of Housing tenders over 2 weeks  

The Largest was the NSW Western Sydney Regional Organisation   
of Councils with a Road Construction tender with the attachment size   
147.86 Mbytes !  
 
We believe that most of the Local Councils have set up Road Databases  
which identifies the condition and rehabilitation timeline for each 
section of Road Asset throughout the Council Area.  

Each section appears to be between 200-300 linear metres for Road  
and Pavement Rehabilitation contracts  

As the majority of tenders are for Road Construction tenders there   
has to be a more efficient way to distribute tender documentation   
rather than download huge files sizes with the Road Construction  
details for each tender  

A number of our members are concerned about how much each State   
Tender site is charging each Council for the tender and each tender   
management process  

B	ENABLING SMES TO RESPOND TO TENDERS
  
In many of the tenders,  successful tenderers are restricted to those 
Organisations prepared to comply with the State Contracts Control 
Board requirement for the Electronic Transaction Act and minimum   
Insurance policies  

EXTRACT FROM NSW TENDER OCT 2006  

These are extracts from the Standard Deed of Agreement which is  
part of a standard zipped (compressed file) issued with each NSW   
Government tenders  

All the pdf files could be html files that are referred to electronically  
rather than being required to be downloaded with each tender  

This zipped file usually comprises 4 main documents:  

Part A&B	Tender Conditions - 35 pages	pdf file 606 Kb  
Part C		Tenderer's response - 8 pages	wrd file 472 Kb  
Part D		Deed of Agreement - 73 pages  	pdf file 990 Kb  
Part E		Specification - varies  

Part D	Deed of Agreement	  

5.4  
Electronic Orders  
5.4.1 The contractor must accept Orders placed by electronic communication  
in accordance with the Electronic Transactions Act (NSW) 2000.  

6.19.5 All successful tenderers are required to accept Orders and other  
business documents and communications by electronic communication  
in accordance with the Electronic Transactions Act (NSW) 2000.   

Participating in smartbuy® and smartbuy® enrolment process:  
6.19.6 Successful tenderers will be required to enrol with smartbuy®,   
which is a three step exercise conducted by the Government Procurement 
Delivery Systems.   

The first step for a successful tenderer is to register the organisation   
online, through the smartbuy® website.  

The tenderer is required to review and sign the smartbuy® Supplier   
Agreement and Participation Rules.   

A copy of these documents can be requested by contacting the  
smartbuy® Helpdesk on 1800 003 985 or 
smartbuyinfocentre@commerce.nsw.gov.au  

6.19.7 The second step is for the nominated smartbuy® Supplier   
Administrator to attend smartbuy® training.   

This training can be conducted online via the smartbuy® website, or   
at one of the regularly scheduled training sessions.  

6.19.8 The final step is to have the catalogue content prepared,   
submitted, reviewed,confirmed and loaded into smartbuy®.  

6.19.9 On completion of the enrolment process, the Supplier   
Administrator will be issued with a log on.   

This will provide access to their catalogue information as held in   
smartbuy®, from which buyers will be able to view and purchase.  

smartbuy® Operational Requirements  
6.19.11 The smartbuy® solution is comprised of a number of   
procurement-related applications and services including the 
smartbuy® CONNECT.   

smartbuy® CONNECT is based on an IBM MQ Series platform, and is  
a full service B2B hub offering a wide range of integration, document 
transformation and trading partner management capabilities.  

6.19.12 smartbuy® CONNECT is tightly integrated to the smartbuy®   
TRADE, and may be connected to Agencies and Suppliers via a number  
of integration mechanisms.   

The transmission types and document formats for the different  
integration options are explained in more detail below.  

6.19.13 All electronic documents transmitted through smartbuy® are   
routed via smartbuy® CONNECT.   

smartbuy® CONNECT may also be used for document transmission 
directly between Agencies and Contractors, without passing through   
the smartbuy® TRADE.  

6.19.14 The successful tenderer will be required to transmit documents   
in accordance with the transmission types and document formats   
detailed below:  

smartbuy® CONNECT supports the following business documents:  

	a) 	Purchase Order [PO]  
	b) 	PO Change  
	c) 	PO Acknowledgement  
	d) 	Receipt  
	e) 	Receipt Change  
	f) 	Advanced Shipping Notice  
	g) 	Invoice  
	h) 	Technical Message Acknowledgement  

These documents are all based on on the Australian eCommerce  
Standard AS4590  

Hence the significance of confirming a single address format  
for AS 4590  
 
D	MINIMUM INSURANCE REQUIREMENTS PRECLUDES SMES  

There are 7 minimum insurance requirements  

a	A broad form liability insurance policy  
b	Workers Compensation Insurance  
c	Crime Liability $ 5,000,000  
d	Professional Indemnity $ 50,000,000  
e	Public Liability  
f	Products Liability  

This precludes most SMEs from responding to tenders  

In addition we are seeing mirror sites rebadged as 2nd and 3rd tier  
web-site consolidators.  

An example is in the New South Wales - where a number of Local   
Government tenders are listed on both the NSW Department of Commerce  
web-site and the Local Regional Organisation of Council [ROC] Web-site.  

These ROC websites are a smaller copy of the State Web site hence   
they have not been developed by the ROC but are probably licensed  
from the State Contracts Control Board which also carries out all the   
tender management "services"  

E	NEXT STEPS  

We would appreciate your views on these issues as the Minister for  
State/Local Government Relations if you are able to speak at an  
OIC Education Seminar in Sydney on either    

1	Wed 23 May 2007 or   

2	Wed 20 Jun 2007 in Sydney  or  

3	A time and date convenient to yourself  

Thank you  

Peter HENRY  
TIMS Co-ordinator  
OTMG TENDER INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SERVICES  

E:	peter.henry@oic.org  
T:	{61}(2) 9953-7412  
W:	 TIMS Government Tender Information Base

FURTHER INFORMATION OR UNSUBSCRIBE  

1	Kids Safe-at-Sport  

	E:	Paul.jenkins@smeems.net  
	Subj:	"Kids Safe-at-Sport"  

2	Information Economy Standards  

	E:	colin.shaw@halisa.net  
	Subj:	"Information Economy Standards"	  

3	OIC Projects  

	E:	peter.henry@oic.org  
	Subj:	"OIC Information Economy Projects"  

4	Unsubscribe  

	E:	sdgillmore@oic.org  
	Subj:	"Unsubscribe please"