As part of the Australian Government’s $1.1 billion commitment under the Natural Heritage Trust (NHT), a Panel of Regional Delivery Partners (RDPs) was established in 2023 to provide environmental protection, sustainable agriculture and natural resource management (NRM) services to 52 regional areas across Australia, in the form of Regional Capacity Services and Project Services.  

The procurement of the Panel was undertaken by the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, along with the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, and the procurement approach was informed by expert procurement advice.  

Lessons learned from the procurement to establish the Panel of Regional Delivery Partners identified areas for continuous improvement and streamlining in the procurement/contract design.

The objective of the procurement is to receive strategic procurement and commercial advice on the contract design to build on lessons learned from using the Panel of Regional Delivery Partners for Environmental Protection, Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management Services, which is an integral part of the department’s core business.

Professional and expert services will be used to provide advice with the view to make the Deed simpler and easier both for staff to use and the market to respond to. Specifically, this will involve delivery/implementation of revised documentation which includes:

Addressing inconsistencies and unclear reporting timeframes across clauses in the Deeds to reduce administration burden.

     a) Better aligning the Deeds with the Commonwealth Contracting Suite terms to reduce complexity and confusion.

     b) Enhancing the extent to which the Deeds align with relevant Australian Government policies and resolving inconsistencies, for example, to ensure suppliers meet whole-of-government standards in relation to First Nations and performance.

     c) Streamlining the approach to subcontracting arrangements, for example, to avoid having to issue multiple waivers (which affect numerous stakeholders internal and external to the Department and involve exhaustive consultation and discussion) and to enable more rapid       service delivery.

     d) Making the Deeds more flexible so that they better support broader use of the services by other Australian Government programs/departments.

     e) Reducing the length and complexity of the Deeds to streamline administration and management and reduce the burden of providing advice and support to other areas of the government, for example, on how to interpret the Deeds and related materials.

    f) Ensuring the Deed is fit-for-purpose and commensurate with the services being procured. For example, other panel Deeds (such as those developed by Defence and Finance) that involve much higher levels of investment and risk are simpler and easier to navigate.

     g) Development of improved digitisation and document usability features (e.g. hyperlinking, document searchability, automation, electronic signatures).

Milestones

1. Project inception meeting -June 2025
2. Draft project plan draft– June 2025
3. Draft updates to better align the Deeds with the Commonwealth Contracting Suite terms and enhancing the extent to which the Deeds align with relevant Australian Government policies – July 2025
4. Draft updates to streamline the approach to subcontracting arrangements – July 2025
5. Draft updates to make the Deeds more flexible, reduce complexity, increase fit-for purpose approach, and improve usability features so that the Deeds better support broader use of the services– August 2025
6. Final of all documents (inclusive of feedback) – September 2025

The output will belong to the department. The intellectual property rights will remain with the department, and the supplier will be required to adhere to a confidentiality agreement and data security requirements, and to ensure that the provided data is used only for the purposes of this procurement and is subsequently removed from the supplier’s systems.