Useful Links
Schools Procurement Unit
The Office of Government Procurement, OGP, commenced operations in 2014 and, together with four key sectors (Health, Defence, Education and Local Government), takes responsibility for sourcing all goods and services on behalf of the Public Service. In addition, the OGP also takes full responsibility for procurement policy and procedures.
Through the OGP and the sector-retained procurement functions, the Public Service will speak with "one voice" to the market for each category of expenditure, eliminating duplication and taking advantage of the scale of public procurement to best effect. This move is in line with best practice in the public and private sector and is part of the continuing reform programme being driven by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.
Schools Procurement Unit
The Schools Procurement Unit (SPU) is the central support resource for providing guidance to all primary and post-primary schools (except ETB schools) on any procurement-related issue. The SPU delivers free advice and practical support to schools to help them achieve improvements in their procurement processes, practices and outcomes. The SPU provides schools access to professionally qualified staff who are highly experienced in public procurement; it produces guidance on procurement best practice; it issues regular newsletters containing the latest procurement information relevant to schools; and it assists schools to access contracts for goods and services which have been negotiated centrally by the Office of Government Procurement and others.
Information with regard to contracts/frameworks for schools, document templates, publications, copy newsletters and SPU staff contact details can all be found at www.spu.ie
Parents
Teacher Centres
There are 21 full time and 9 part time Teacher Education Centres in Ireland. These centres are represented by the Association of Teacher Educations Centres Ireland (ATECI)
ATECI describes the principal activity of Education Centres (originally Teachers’ Centres) as:
"to organize the local delivery of national programmes of teacher professional development on behalf of the Department of Education and Skills. Centres also organize a varied local programme of activities for teachers, school management and parents in response to demand. Education Centres are statutory bodies and are managed by voluntary Management Committees elected annually"
Access to the websites of each Education Centre may be found on the ATECI website