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Marae upgrades by Māori businesses

8th May 2023, by Puna Awarau and Amotai

Auckland Council’s Marae Infrastructure Programme supports the improvement of marae across Tāmaki Makaurau. It is a $60m programme dedicated to improving the condition of 32 marae across the region over 10 years.

The Marae Infrastructure team wanted to use Māori contractors to undertake work on Marae to maximise the investment from council in Māori communities. The Marae Infrastructure Programme had a total budget value of $60m and was a clear programme of work to trial a different approach to attract and engage Māori businesses.

Figure1 - Hoani Waititi Marae, one of the Marae supported through the Marae Infrastructure Programme

They engaged with He Waka Eke Noa (now Amotai) early on to find suppliers that may be able to do the work. Additionally, they sought the support of Auckland Councils procurement team and had endorsement from the GM to take a different approach. This meant they had a permissive environment, a pool of potential suppliers, internal supplier diversity champions and ideas of approaches they could take. They developed a procurement strategy that supported this goal. The plan was for all works under $300k to be tendered or direct awarded to Māori businesses in the first instance.

If no suitable businesses were found, then other contractors (already engaged by Auckland Council) would be offered to tender for the work. This approach meant that closed tenders could be run just to Māori businesses. They had to compete against each other to win the work but were no longer competing with organisations much larger than them.

Figure 2 - Māori business, Lite Civil. One of the businesses contracted through the Marae Infrastructure Programme.

This approach was trialled and tested on multiple Marae through the Marae Infrastructure Programme and has provided numerous Māori businesses with the opportunity to bid and win work. Without this intervention and innovation, Māori businesses would not have known about these projects or had the opportunity to bid for and win work on Marae.

As a result of the programme, 42% of the Marae Infrastructure contracts were spent with Māori businesses in financial year 21/22 with over 10 Māori businesses. Just under $4million has been spent with Māori and Pasifika businesses through the project since its inception in 2018.

“If we didn’t try something different and give new suppliers a go, we wouldn’t have been able to engage so many Māori business, we are so happy we did.” Roslyn Pere-Morriss, Programme Principal, Marae Infrastructure Programme. Auckland Council

Read the practitioner case study here.