Procurement of Non Consultancy Services

Procurement of “Services” refers to the acquisition of “consultancy” (intellectual services) and “non-consultancy” services. The procurement of consultancy services was covered in Module V. Module VI of this procurement management training series explores the procurement of non-consultancy services; often referred to by MDBs as “physical services”. In this latter category of services, physical rather than intellectual aspects of the services are dominant and the outputs/deliverables of physical services’ contracts lend themselves to measurement like it is the case in the provision of cleaning, security, catering, printing, travel and transport services, facilities management etc. The procurement objectives in all procurement contracts remains the Best Value for Money. However, Best Value for Money in consultancy services tend to give much greater weight to quality aspects than price aspects which is not the case in the procurement of Goods, Works and Physical Services where Best Value for Money tends to prioritize price since the quality standards can be readily defined in the tender documents and the contractual outputs much easily measured.

This introductory session introduces the participants to the increasing range of physical services procured by the public entities, the nature of physical services and the process to be adopted in selecting the procurement strategy for delivery of physical services contr