NZ’s First Public Sector Social Procurement Conference

New Zealand’s First Public Sector Social Procurement Conference

As the leader in public sector social procurement, The Southern Initiative has responded to requests from around the country to host New Zealand’s first conference on the subject.

More than 100 public sector employees from around the country have signed up for Creating Shared Prosperity through Public Procurement 2018 at GridAKL in Madden St, Wynyard Quarter this Friday, June 8.

The conference features several high profile subject matter experts from New Zealand and overseas including ArcBlue Director Chris Newman and Supply Nation CEO Laura Berry. The latter is Australia’s leader in indigenous supplier diversity and the former a specialist procurement consultancy operating in Asia and the Pacific.

The Minister of Māori Development and Local Government, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta is the keynote address at the conference being held by TSI in conjunction with Auckland Council, the Pacific Business Trust, the Ministry for Pacific Peoples and Te Puni Kōkori. The conference will be opened by Councillor Penny Hulse, Chair of the council’s Environment and Community Committee at 9.00am.

Social or public procurement is a strategic lever the public sector can use to create quality and sustainable employment and enterprise opportunities which in turn creates shared prosperity, one of TSI’s key focus areas.

“TSI’s work in this regard is literally ground-breaking,” says TSI Social Intrapreneur and conference speaker Tania Pouwhare.

“On the recently completed Manukau Bus Station build TSI worked with Auckland Transport to build employment requirements into the tender. We anticipated we would get one graduate from our Māori and Pasifika Trades Training Programme employed per $5million of contract value and in the end, thanks to a strong relationship with the contractor New Zealand Strong, we placed 13 people into employment with sub-contractors.

“If we hadn’t used the procurement lever those young people wouldn’t have got those jobs but because we did they’ve got quality jobs with upskilling built into their contracts and a quality opportunity that’s going to make a huge difference to their lives and the lives of their families.”

The conference will close at 4:00 PM following the minister’s keynote address and a panel session exploring why New Zealand is so far behind in social procurement when its standard practice across the world.

For further details about the conference/speakers go to

www.cspnz2018.nz.

ENDS

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