The Model

In April 2006, the University of Newcastle, on behalf of its Project Management partner (Higher Ed Services) and the Australian University Procurement Network (AUPN), applied for funding under the Workplace Productivity Programme for a project to enable benchmarking of the procurement function and commodity pricing across the sector. In order to comply with the grant application and governance requirements The University of Newcastle agreed to act as "Lead University". The University of Newcastle has acknowledged interest and expertise in procurement.

Each university participating in the commodity benchmarking projects or the procurement function benchmarking signed a Participation Agreement with HES as the Programme Management Partner, in respect to those activities. A Non-Disclosure Agreement was also signed between the universities and Purchasing Index Pty Ltd to ensure the confidentiality of PI's intellectual property and all data provided by the universities for the purposes of the benchmarking.

The AUPN Executive Committee provided advice to the Programme Management Partner (HES) on the selection of commodities and services to be benchmarked. and surveys were conducted each year across the participating universities to determine which would be included.

AUPN Advisory Groups were formed for each sub-project, supplemented by experts from within the sector, to establish the scope and parameters of each benchmarking exercise with assistance from Purchasing Index.

By signing the Participating University Agreement, a university committed to taking part in at least 3 exercises.

The average at the end of the Programme was 7.5 categories per university.