Craig Butt, PSPP, is a Procurement Officer III with the Government Purchasing Agency, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. and
completed the Public Sector Procurement Program (PSPP) in June 2011. We spoke with Craig about his participation in the Program in September 2011.
Craig’s agency is responsible for goods and services purchases for all 18 government departments for $2500 and up. He has been with government purchasing for 4 years, and before that, worked for a number of private sector companies in procurement positions. He sees a big difference in the focus of public-sector versus private-sector purchasing, mainly around the principles of best-value procurement rather than price-based purchasing, and legislation supporting the fairness and transparency required in public-sector.
The PSPP appealed to Craig as it is the only program he has come across specifically designed for the public sector in Canada, and as such, it has direct relevance to the work he currently does. Craig feels that a lot of procurement and contract management training courses don’t carry relevance to what is being done on-the-job and are written from an outside perspective rather than a practitioner’s view. The PSPP focuses on acquiring real-life skills that can be applied in his day-to-day work. One skill that Craig has been able to use in his workplace immediately upon completion of the Program is conducting market sounding and prequalification processes. Until taking the PSPP, his department had done very little prequalification. Recently, upon Craig’s initiative, the department conducted a very successful prequalification process leading to a successful tender call that resulted insubstantial savings for the Province. The class discussions and case studies Craig participated in during the Program helped him to develop the skills and confidence necessary to implement this process.
Craig also feels this program will strengthen the public-sector profession by providing a uniform education base across the Atlantic Provinces and the rest of Canada. Not all aspects of each course will apply to all organizations, but the Program gives participants a broad understanding of best practices used in other jurisdictions. It also allows classmates to brainstorm with colleagues, come up with new ideas and perhaps adapt emerging practices to improve their own processes. This program enables participants to build a network of peers – it is invaluable to be able to pick up the phone and call someone in another city or province to ask advice and to get a third party, impartial opinion on how to approach a challenging situation.
Overall, Craig rates the program at 9 out of 10 with this comment to summarize:
“This program, whether you are experienced or new, and having the range of professionals we had in our class, gives someone new a lot of knowledge and someone with experience, a different perspective. The knowledge passed on through the instructors and classmates is something totally intangible; I don’t think you could put a dollar value on it. “
