The new occupational standard for public procurement experts – approved and published by the National Authority for Qualifications (Ministry of Education) – can be accessed here (in Romanian).
It marks the harmonization with professional practice and standards in the European Union, at the same time incorporating and addressing the specific issues of the Romanian public procurement system. Also, the new standard generates a change of paradigm as regards professional training and competency management in public procurement.
Some of the essential features of the revised occupational standard are presented below:
- it reclassifies the occupation of public procurement expert within the Romanian Clasification of Occupations (COR), corresponding to ISCO-08 / ESCO – sub-major group 24 ‘business and administration professionals’, minor group 242 ‘administration professionals’, unit group 2421 ‘management and organization analysts’, as is adequate in light of the current features of the occupation
- it reflects and supports development of competencies in the new Romanian competency framework for public procurement professionals, an instrument that is harmonized with ProcurCompEU – The European competency framework for public procurement professionals
- the educational and professional training programme corresponding to the occupational standard is classified into level 6 of the European Qualification Framework, and can be offered by higher education institutions, including in partnership with professional training providers, in accordance with national regulations concerning education
- the educational and professional training programme promotes multidisciplinary integration as a training delivery approach, with a focus on practical aspects of the profession, and on progress from an orientation towards procedure to an orientation towards process, strategic acumen and performance in public procurement
- it stimulates ‘reflective practice’ in public procurement, based on “reflection, anticipation and action” [OECD, ‘E2030 Conceptual Framework: Key Competencies for 2030 (DeSeCo 2.0)’]
- it incorporates guidance from programmatic documents at EU level in the area of public procurement professionalisation, such as:
- ‘Making Public Procurement work in and for Europe’ [Communication of the European Commission, Strasbourg, 3.10.2017 COM(2017) 572 final]
- ‘Recommendation (UE) 2017/1805 of the Commission, of 3 October 2017, on the professionalisation of public procurement – Building an architecture for the professionalization of public procurement’, including the ‘Library of good practice accompanying the European Commission Recommendation’
- it aligns to preoccupations regarding competency development in general, as reflected at EU level:
- it incorporates concepts, interpretations, and approaches promoted by renowned educational and professional training institutions at international level in the area of procurement
The new occupational standard thus creates important premises for substantial development of public procurement competencies in Romania on a medium-long term. This will benefit Romanian contracting authorities and entities, as well as public procurement professionals.
Also, the new standard facilitates development and diversification of the educational and professional training offering at national level, to meet increasingly complex procurement professional needs in the European context.
