Fairness monitoring

Summit, Mar 2004 by Newman, David

. . . the past, present and future

THIS IS A BIT of a different take on the Chatroom. Before everyone cries foul and gets up in arms, I assure you we'll still chat, but this time around I feel we're exploring particularly new, relevant and interesting ground (not that we don't do that every issue, of course - ed.), so I'm pontificating and opining myself just a wee bit more than usual.

We have an impressive array of participants (as we do in all Chatrooms, of course - ed.) this time around - so much so that I've taken the unusual step of adding professional designations to names. That also relates to our discussion, which in part includes professional qualifications.

David Swift has been around purchasing much of his relatively young life, including the strategic development and support of the Materiel Management Institute. He and some talented colleagues have hung out a shingle and their RFP Solutions venture provides a wide range of procurement and management consulting. Swift not only knows the nuts and bolts of procurement, but has his finger on the pulse of the broader strategic issues in public purchasing. His colleague, Frank Richter is an experienced fairness professional based in Kelowna, BC, with a broad, senior 35year background at the RCMP in auditing, procurement and corporate management. Howard Grant is a respected, oft-consulted fairness commissioner with more than 10 assignments under his belt. he also has a strong grip on the public procurement, business and management world. His consulting operation, Partnering and Procurement, is based out of Ottawa. Our fourth participant, Ron Boothby, is a management consultant and project manager with a strong background in private sector defence and other contracting, who has worked in senior jobs for firms such as Paramax, Unisys and, as a contractor at General Dynamics. he also, among other sins, was a company liaison in Britain during the first ill-fated Sea King Helicopter Replacement program.

So, just what is this fairness business and what should it have to do with public procurement? For public purchasers who are not already into this up to their eyeballs, a fairness process is third party scrutiny of the contracting process. It is usually used for major public procurement projects. The fairness person is engaged by the buyer as part of the contracting process and attests that the contracting was fair.

What it is, therefore, depends on who you ask, but there seems to be a consensus that fairness monitoring is both a product of our times - open, litigious, participatory and information loaded, post 9/11, post Enron, post sponsorship scandal and post Radwanski - and a risk management safety valve for political and process deniability. But it would be a grave mistake to simply dismiss the fairness trend as passing fancy, or as a simple "cover your butt" exercise. It is real and increasingly pervasive, not to mention especially attractive to politicians.

Most practitioners recommend that a fairness person be involved in all stages of the procurement from the very beginning. That means requirement identification, criteria development, RFP development, solicitation, bidder contact, bid receipt and opening, evaluation, selection and de-briefing. The fairness person is an independent, non-voting advisor and observer throughout the process, ensuring fair, consistent and reasonable treatment for all bidders. That also means attesting to that fairness and testifying at tribunals, review boards and court proceedings.

The profession has progressed to the degree that practitioners are self-defining and differentiating service. A definition that I find helpful in understanding some of the nuance is the difference between a process monitor, a fairness monitor and a fairness commissioner. A process monitor is a witness who does not participate, simply observes and minutes the process. A fairness monitor will keep records, too, but will also alert participants to any potential contraventions, provide requested advice and steer the process. A fairness commissioner adds to those elements with an even more active role by actually influencing process design and conduct, making judgments and intervening to ensure fairness and reasonableness.

If the process is in the end fair, each of them will produce a report outlining the contracting process and attesting to its fair conduct. Even if this third party professional reporting didn't cover all fairness, it could well be a valued contribution to government contract management.

So where is this fairness business going and what's it going to mean to public procurement practitioners? The truth is we are witnessing the birth of a profession and current practitioners, fewer than 50 of them in the whole country, are true pioneers. That doesn't mean we should picture the wild, unruly old west, full of fly-bynight opportunists, gunslingers and flimflam artists - far from it. This is a profession of highly respected, well-qualified and ethically-oriented professionals who are responding to a demand, rather than creating a supply. That is obvious to me and, I hope, to you in our ensuing chat. However, there are still a whole lot of serious issues related to the advent of fairness processes.