The decision to use a direct sourcing approach must be
justified.
Government agencies are often under pressure to procure goods
and services in a short amount of time and in situations where the
agency:
- has a current contract in place but has exhausted all of the
options to extend the contract;
- is amending a contract to add new services; or
- has no contract in place with any supplier.
All of these options raise direct sourcing issues. Agencies may
be attracted to direct sourcing because it is quick. The agency
does not need to comply with all requirements of the Commonwealth
Procurement Guidelines (CPGs). They can approach
the supplier of their choice.
The ANAO has found that "in the majority of cases where
direct sourcing was used for procurements, the reason for adopting
this approach was not justified and properly documented as required
by the CPGs. In addition, many of the contract variations reviewed
involved a significant change in scope but were
