The Department of Finance is developing the Commonwealth Standard Terms (CST) in response to Recommendation 5 of the Joint Select Committee on Government Procurement report, Buying into our Future: Review of amendments to the Commonwealth Procurement Rules
(29 June 2017).
The Commonwealth Contracting Suite (CCS), which is mandatory for most non-ICT procurements valued up to $200,000 and may be used in contracts valued up to $1 million, provides standard terms and conditions to ensure consistency and ease of use for businesses contracting with government.
The new CST will include a range of optional contract clauses to manage wording consistency in contracts or contracting templates where the CCS is not used. The CST clauses are drafted in the clear language of the CCS, which aims to reduce complexity for suppliers.
The first twelve (12) draft clauses are now available for public consultation. I encourage all interested individuals, businesses and organisations to review the Consultation Draft CST clauses and provide comments and suggestions, including proposed alternative wording, by emailing me at haveyoursay.procurement@finance.gov.au. I also welcome recommendations for other clauses that may be a useful addition to the CST.
Public comment will be open until 5:00 pm Friday 22 June 2018, however please email CCSDesk@finance.gov.au if you need more time. Subject to consultation, Finance plans to publish an initial set of CST clauses in July 2018, and to add further clauses over time.
Attachments:
- The Consultation Draft CST and CCS Contract Terms document highlights the differences between the current CCS Contract Terms and the Consultation Draft CST Terms, where the CST clauses are based on the CCS.
- For reference, here is a link to all current CCS Contract Terms.
