Common collaborative contract terms

Buying through AoG contracts can be made challenging by the use of acronyms and jargon. Find explanations of commonly used terms below.

Level of compliance Main audience Other

Recommended

  • Principals and Tumuaki
  • Staff responsible for buying on behalf of their school
  • Boards

Understanding these key terms will make it easier to buy for a school.

Non-disclosure agreement (NDA)

To access sensitive commercial information about collaborative contracts and supplier businesses, schools are required to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

Completing an NDA means that a school is agreeing to not share any information that it receives about goods and/or service suppliers and their pricing with anyone who is not responsible for buying at the school.

An NDA protects a business’ commercially sensitive information and ensures that they can continue to provide preferential pricing to the public sector.

NDA for AoG contracts

Once a school has signed an NDA for their first AoG contract managed by New Zealand Government Procurement (NZGP), they are not required to sign additional NDAs for future AoG contracts.

Sign the NDA through the link below, or contact school.buying@education.govt.nz to see if your school has already signed one.

Non-disclosure agreement form | New Zealand Government Procurement and Property(external link)

NDA for syndicated contracts

A unique NDA is required to be signed for each syndicated contract and provided to the government agency responsible for leading the syndicated contract.

School-linked RealMe

To access sensitive commercial information through the New Zealand Government Procurement (NZGP) website, school staff must use a school-linked RealMe login.

To create a RealMe login, see Home – RealMe(external link)

A school staff member who is responsible for buying will need to link their personal RealMe to the school account on the NZGP website, through the Login/Register link on the website.

NZGPP home | New Zealand Government Procurement and Property(external link)

When signing up, ensure that you:

  • tick the "I'm authorised to access commercially sensitive information on All-of-Government contracts" box
  • enter your school email address
  • enter the name of your school in full (not an abbreviation).

Once completed, an activation link will be sent to your agency email address. Click on the link provided in the email and re-login with your RealMe account.

After that, you will need to accept the terms and conditions before your account can be fully activated.

Concerns about using a personal RealMe

The NZGP site will only use a RealMe as a form of log in. No unique or personal information is tied to an account, given to us, or passed on to another agency.

As soon as we are notified that a person with a school-linked RealMe account is leaving their role, access to sensitive information on the NZGP site will be removed from the RealMe account.

Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)

A Memorandum of Understanding for an AoG contract sets out the relationship between New Zealand Government Procurement (NZGP) and the participating school, for a specific contract.

It states the key points in the contract between NZGP and the supplier business. These are the AoG terms that the school is signing on to.

It also states the responsibilities of NZGP and the participating school.

Every AoG contract has its own unique MoU. It can be found in the ‘Contract documents’ section on each contract’s page on the NZGP site.

When a school signs a Letter of Accession for an AoG contract, they are agreeing to the terms of the contract’s Memorandum of Understanding.

Joining document

Signing the joining document associated with a contract allows a school to participate in that contract. Sometimes the joining document is called a Letter of Accession (LoA), if it is an on-line form it may be a Form of Accession. Some of the new contracts have a 'Joining Form'.

A new LoA must be signed for each contract joined.

By signing an AoG contract’s joining document, a school agrees to the terms of that contract’s Memorandum of Understanding and the related AoG contract itself.

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