A recent highly-publicised incident where contracting staff at the Victoria University of Technology were involved in a major scam is likely to be only the tip of the iceberg, according to CQU purchasing expert Ken Dooley at CQU.

Mr Dooley said this incident possibly only attracted attention because of the involvement of key sporting figures.

"Normally if it simply involved low-level purchasing staff, the incident would not have rated such attention,\" he said.

"Nonetheless it does highlight a potential problem in both public and private sector organisations.

"A similar incident in the public sector was reported in Queensland where a teacher in a prison was involved in getting payment for fictional jobs, receiving secret commissions, and outsourcing work for which the correctional service paid.

"In NSW, the ICAC has been reporting on fraud and suspected fraud within the public sector for many years and has identified many examples where the procurement of goods and services has been subject to unscrupulous practices.\".

Mr Dooley said the main reason for the potential problems in this area was an almost complete neglect by the Federal Government of the management of procurement within its departments and agencies.

This had been the case ever since the demise of the Department of Administrative Services.

"When DAS was disbanded after the travel rort affairs in the mid 90s, departments within DAS included Purchasing Australia were also abolished.

"Purchasing Australia was a specialist division set up on the recommendation of a number of enquiries into Federal purchasing and was dedicated to the development of purchasing capabilities in the Commonwealth public sector.

"While significant progress has been made to professionalise purchasing within the jurisdictions of a number of State Governments, there still leaves a lot to be desired in terms of training and education of purchasing staff.

"What is more important is that management in general is generally ignorant of the opportunities for savings through purchasing just as they are unaware of the potential for significant problems within their purchasing sections.

"This is particularly so because it is the purchasing staff who are responsible for the setting up, negotiation and management of contracts for most non-core services provided in modern organisations.

"The dramatic growth in volume of outsourcing has raised the volume of work and the resources for which purchasing staff are now responsible without supervision.".

Mr Dooley said a recent parliamentary report indicated that of 24 defence contracts, 18 were over budget or over time.

"These overruns are inevitably costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

"These problems with the setting up and management of contracts will continue while management and in particular the Federal Government ignores the development of professional purchasing.

"Currently purchasing is the responsibility of the Department of Finance which does not have specialist expertise in the area and does not even recognise that expertise is needed.

"Departmental guidelines state that each agency should have accredited purchasing officers, however such a position is not defined.

"In essence purchasing in federal government departments is a free for all.

"There currently is little guidance or opportunity for purchasing staff to develop and follow a career path in purchasing. Very few universities offer purchasing courses and none require business graduates to study even one unit of purchasing. Yet every organisation has to purchase all its resources. Other than labour, all resources purchased, the sourcing of all supplies should be managed by professionals.

"The expectation that staff given 20-odd days of competency based training can compete with slick sales people with degrees and even postgraduate qualifications is laughable. Sales staff are recruited from the graduates of the many marketing courses offered at every university in Australia. Purchasing staff are recruited from non-qualified staff or graduates from other disciplines.

"It is impossible to expect to recruit more than a handful of purchasing graduates as there are at most three universities in Australia that offer graduate or postgraduate courses in purchasing.

"This situation will prevail until action is taken by governments and in particular the Federal Government to deal with the situation.

"Drastic action is needed to repair a decade of neglect.

"This means setting professional standards for Federal Government purchasing and particularly the training and development of purchasing staff from entry level to strategic level with courses added to the existing courses to which recognise the complexity of purchasing just as organisations have recognised the complexity of business in virtually every other facet of business.

"The lead has been set by a number of State Governments – in particular Queensland, South Australia and Victoria have launched major training and development initiatives.

"Other States such as New South Wales, Western Australia, and Tasmania are moving in the same direction.

"Even the ACT and the Northern Territory are working on progressing the development of their purchasing staff with various courses being developed, albeit at fairly low levels.

"If this does not occur Government will continue to put large amounts of taxpayer dollars in the hands of purchasing staff who may have the best of intentions (and some who may not) but who are woefully qualified to deal with the issues they confront.".