Notifications to the market
Rule: CPRs - Paragraphs 7.10 to 7.15
Relevant entities must publish open approaches to the market on AusTender. As far as practicable, relevant documentation should also be available for download from AusTender.
Where a relevant entity has published a planned procurement in their Annual Procurement Plan (APP), the APP Agency Reference ID published on the APP should be referenced against the Approach to Market (ATM).
In a multi-stage process, the first stage should be published on AusTender, and relevant entities should, to the extent practicable, use AusTender to make request documentation available in the subsequent stage/s.
ATMs need to remain on AusTender until the tender closing date, unless the procurement is cancelled. Where a procurement is cancelled during the ATM stage, and the ATM documentation has been downloaded by suppliers, the entity is required to attach a cancellation addenda file and a cancellation reason which is notified to registered users.
A relevant entity may publish notices of an ATM elsewhere (for example on the relevant entity’s website or official social media account) after the ATM has been published on AusTender. However, if a relevant entity chooses to do this, the notice must be the same as the ATM published on AusTender, and must direct the reader to go to AusTender for further information.
Relevant entities seeking to advertise tender notices internationally where the entity is within Australian territory but the notice is to appear outside Australian territory, the entity should use the Australian Government’s MMA. Advertised ATM notices placed by entities located outside Australian territory to appear outside Australian territory, are not required to use the Australian Government’s MMA.
Procurement of Consultancy Services
Procurement of consultancy services should be outlined in the description during the ATM. A consultancy is defined as the engagement of temporary services that:
- involves the development of an intellectual output that assists with decision making, and
- the intellectual output represents the independent view of the service provider.
Publication of public interest certificates
As outlined in RMG-422 Handling complaints under the Government Procurement (Judicial Review) Act 2018, public interest certificates may be issued by an accountable authority of a relevant entity stating that it is not in the public interest for a specified procurement to be suspended while the complaint is investigated.
More information on issuing a public interest certificate (PIC) during any stage of a covered procurement process, including the PIC notification and publication requirements can be found in RMG-422 Handling complaints under the Government Procurement (Judicial Review) Act 2018.
