Governance: Public procurement data¶

The following indicator is under consideration for this pilot edition of the Barometer: To what extent do relevant laws, regulations, policies and guidance provide a basis for collecting and publishing structured data on government procurement?

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Question sub-components

Show/hide supporting questions

Existence

Are there laws, policies or regulations requiring collection or publication of this information in any form?
- No
- They are being drafted, or are not yet implemented.
  Supporting questions: Please provide brief details
- They exist and are operational
Do relevant laws, policies, regulations or guidance discuss collection and publication of structured and open data?
- Relevant laws, policies and guidance explicitly create barriers to collecting and publishing structured data
  Supporting questions: Please briefly detail the barriers created (e.g. requirements for paper-based filing only)
- There is no mention of data in relevant laws, policies or guidance
- Requirements to collect data are set out in non-binding policy or guidance
  Supporting questions: Please provide a URL to the most relevant legislation, policy or guidance
- Requirements to collect data are set out in binding policy, regulations or law
  Supporting questions: Please provide a URL to the most relevant legislation, policy or guidance
- Requirements to publish data are set out in non-binding policy or guidance
  Supporting questions: Please provide a URL to the most relevant legislation, policy or guidance
- Requirements to publish data are set out in binding policy or law
  Supporting questions: Please provide a URL to the most relevant legislation, policy or guidance

Elements

Part 1: What kinds of procurement process does the framework cover?

Requirements for data collection and/or disclosure apply to goods and services (No, Partially, Yes)

Supporting questions (conditional)

If Partially or Yes: If there is a threshold value below which disclosure requirements do not apply, please provide the currency and value here (E.g. USD 10000)
Requirements for data collection and/or disclosure apply to public works contracts (No, Partially, Yes)

Supporting questions (conditional)

If Partially or Yes: If there is a threshold value below which disclosure requirements do not apply, please provide the currency and value here (E.g. USD 10000)
Requirements for data collection and/or disclosure apply equally to direct awards and specialised procurement procedures (No, Partially, Yes) Answer partially if there are weaker data collection and transparency requirements for direct awards or specialised procurement procedures.

Supporting questions (conditional)

If Partially or Yes: If there is a threshold value below which disclosure requirements do not apply, please provide the currency and value here (E.g. USD 10000)

Part 2: What stages of the procurement process does the framework cover?

The planning phase is covered (No, Partially, Yes)
The tender stage is covered (No, Partially, Yes)
The award stage is covered (No, Partially, Yes)
Contract implementation (No, Partially, Yes) Answer yes if you can locate any data from after contract award and signature, such as spending transactions, confirmation that goods or services were delivered, contract amendments, or data on contract performance.

Supporting questions (conditional)

If Partially or Yes: What kind of implementation data is available?

Part 3: What does the framework say specifically about data?

The rules/guidance support publication of open data. (No, Partially, Yes)
The rules/guidance support the collection of structured data. (No, Partially, Yes)
The rules/guidance requires timely updates to data (No, Partially, Yes)
The rules/guidance requires the use of specific data standards (No, Partially, Yes)

Supporting questions (conditional)

If Partially or Yes: Are they international standards?

If Partially or Yes: Please list significant data standards mentioned in the rules/guidance

Extent

How comprehensive is the coverage of laws, regulations, policies, or guidance assessed for this question?
- They only apply in a narrow set of situations
  Supporting questions: When do these rules/guidance apply?
- They cover one or more central government agencies, but there are many agencies or local government units with weaker rules/guidance
  Supporting questions: Which agency or agencies do these rules/guidances apply to?
- They cover one or more central government agencies, but there are similar rules/guidance that apply to many other agencies and/or local government units.
  Supporting questions: Which agency or agencies do these rules/guidances apply to?
- The laws, regulations, policies or guidance assessed, or equivalent rules/guidance, apply across the whole public sector including national, sub-national and local government
  Supporting questions: Are there any notable exceptions? (E.g. defence sector)

Definitions

Definitions and Identification

Many governments spend a substantial proportion of their budget through procurement: contracting with private sector providers to supply good and services or undertake public works (e.g. construction projects). Almost all public agencies, from central to local government, will carry out procurement at some point.

Procurement involves a number of stages, from planning, to tender (inviting bids), awarding a contract, and monitoring performance of the contract. In some cases, governments may award contracts without a bidding process, or through some special negotiated procedure.

Procurement laws, regulations, policies and guidance describe the processes through which governments should enter into contracts, and the information on different stages of the procurement that should be disclosed. Many of these require publication of planning and tender documents, and some require publication of details of contract award and performance information. In some cases, countries have different rules for goods and services, and for public works, and there may also be different rules around publishing information related to direct awards and special procedures.

This question is specifically focussed on whether national procurement laws, regulations, policies or guidance support publication of structured and open data. In general, this will only be possible where there are requirements for procuring entities either use common data standards/systems, or to submit data to a central platform.

Examples:

Ukraine's public procurement law provides a detailed specification of information that should be published for each contracting process through a central e-procurement system, and explicitly requires publication as open data. The law includes penalties for non-compliance.
The United Kingdom's Public Contract Regulations (Secondary legislation) require basic information on all public procurements above a high threshold value to be published to a central portal, and Transparency Principles (Guidance) set a lower threshold for central government departments. The government has made public commitments to publish open data on procurement, but this is not yet reflected in the law.

Research Guidance

Starting points

Sources:
- The Global Public Procurement Database country profiles list relevant national procurement laws and regulations.
- The World Bank Benchmarking Public Procurement survey provides data on around 40 countries 'Traditional Public Investment' procurement processes, including assessments and legal sources on whether the procuring authority issues invitations for bids/tender, and whether they publish contract award notices. Note: Only use assessments for 'Traditional Public Investment (TPI)' and not 'Public Private Partnerships'. Not all countries have TPI assessments available.
- The Transparent Public Procurement Rating (TPPR) project provides periodic assessments of procurement laws and processes for around 40 countries. Country assessments containing references to relevant laws can be downloaded from country result pages.
- For countries in Eurasia, the EuroPAM database lists relevant procurement laws and provides an overview of thresholds, mechanisms; the database currently includes 34 countries.
- The OGP Explorer ****contains details of country commitments to improve procurement transparency.
Search:
- For recent updates to national procurement laws.
- 'Procurement Rules' + 'COVID-19' (or similar) to check for changes as a result of the pandemic.
Consult:
- Procurement experts
- Transparency advocates

What to look for?

Look for evidence that can answer the following questions:

Do laws, regulations, policies or guidance explicitly support the collection (and/or publication) of structured data?
Do the laws, regulations, policies or guidance that require data collection and transparency cover all forms of procurement (goods & services, public works, direct awards etc.)?
Is there a requirement to collect and publish data at each stage of the procurement process (planning, tender, award, implementation/spending & performance)?

National and sub-national considerations

Even within federal systems, national governments will carry out some procurement activities. You should focus research on the national government, but should pay attention to cases where either:

The national rules also apply to local government units;
Equivalent rules apply to local government units;

If there are no national rules, and/or a sub-national government (e.g. state government) has considerably stronger laws, regulations, policies or guidance for procurement data collection and disclosure, you should note this in the justification. However, question answers should still be based on the national situation.

There may be cases where national rules have only very limited applicability (e.g. to procurement carried out on behalf of donors, or only procurement by a single government agency). This can be noted in the extent component.

Indicator Justification

Having a legal, regulatory or policy framework that supports collection and disclosure of procurement data is important to support the application of data analysis that promotes public good outcomes of procurement, and mitigates against risks of corruption, inefficient spending, or negative externalities from unaccountable public procurement.

The Open Contracting Partnership list four example use cases of procurement data:

Securing value for money in procurement;
Detecting fraud and corruption;
Increasing competitiveness of public contracting;
Monitoring service delivery.

These use cases benefit from structured data available across the procurement cycle, and from reliably provided data. Where the rules governing procurement inhibit digitisation (e.g. prescribing use of paper forms without providing resources for their digitisation); fail to require data is collected or disclosed on all stages of the procurement process; or exclude certain types of procurement from data collection and disclosure requirements, then the reliability and usefulness of data may be reduced.

Whilst a number of projects currently review public procurement rules around the world, we currently lack a unified dataset of where laws, regulations, policies or guidance exist to support collection and disclosure of data.

This indicator is paired with a data availability indicator, to allow analysis of the impact of governance rules on data availability.

Background

Governments have been involved in buying goods, services and works from the private sector for centuries, although recognition of procurement as a formal government process and rule-bound practice has developed significantly over recent decades (Thai 2001). Today, upwards of $13tn a year is spent worldwide through public procurement, with many countries spending 10% or more their GDP through public contracts (Open Contracting Partnership 2020).

Arrowsmith et. al. describe procurement as a process involving three phases: planning, contracting, and managing contract performance (Arrowsmith et al. 2011). The contracting process may be further subdivided depending on the procurement procedure in use. In the case of competitive procurement, tender (inviting bids), award (selecting the supplier) and contract (signing an agreement) phases may exist. Telgen et. al. (2012) describe how public procurement, by contrast with private sector procurement, operates in the context of particular constraints (such as demands for transparency and accountability, budget driven decision making, political agendas, and responding to multiple different stakeholder needs), and opportunities (such as the potential for collaboration between government entities, and the market power of the public sector as a large buyer). This has made public procurement the focus of considerable policy and academic focus.

Various waves of procurement reform have taken place from the 1970s onwards. Early efforts placed the focus on developing model procurement procedures and rules, often emphasising requirements to publish notices of tenders and contract awards (Arrowsmith 2004; Arrowsmith, Linarelli, and Wallace 2000) to improve the efficiency, effectiveness and professionalism of procurement (Thai 2001), support cross-border trade (Hoekman and Mavroidis 1997; Georgopoulos, Hoekman, and Mavroidis 2017), and address corruption (Yukins 2007; Schefer and Woldesenbet 2013). With the greater digitisation of government, emphasis was placed on the introduction of e-procurement to certain stages of procurement (UN DESA 2011; Davila, Gupta, and Palmer 2003). Most recently, ideas of ‘open contracting’ and data-driven transparency have gained traction within procurement practice, offering a renewed connection between technical discussions of procurement process, and discussion of the public goods delivered through government procurement spending (Gätjen 2014; Adam, Dávid Barrett, and Fazekas 2020; Adam, Fazekas, and Tóth 2020; Nyambane and Ozor 2020). The Open Contracting Partnership, in particular, has paid a significant role in bridging between governments, businesses, civil society, and technologists to promote a renewed focus on procurement transparency and application of technology as a resource to drive reform, including through the creation of the Open Contracting Data Standard. Other areas of government contracting outside regular procurement have also received specific attention, including Public Private Partnerships (Shukla 2016; Ghossein, Saliola, and Lopez Claros 2016) and extractives industry contracts (Van Alstine 2017; Hubert and Pitman 2017). However, rules for, and transparency of, asset disposals by states remains relatively underexplored.

In the context of the public goods delivered by procurement, a particular focus has been placed in recent years on medical procurement (Kohler and Dimancesco 2020; Jack 2016), an area of concern made more acute in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Strong links between procurement and sustainable development have also been made (Adjei-Bamfo, Maloreh-Nyamekye, and Ahenkan 2019; Brammer and Walker 2011; Johnstone 2003) and are reflected in SDG target 12.7 which calls on states to “promote public procurement practices that are sustainable in accordance with national policies and priorities”. Adjei-Bamfo et. al. (ibid) suggest e-procurement systems have a particular role to play in helping developing country governments share sustainable procurement requirements. However, no systematic data is currently being collected to track SDG 12.7.

In short, there is significant policy and academic interest in public procurement, and as procurement often accounts for a significant proportion of government spending and GDP, there is significant value in improving understanding of the extent to which data is being made available and used to deliver a range of outcomes, including:

Efficiency and value for money
Fairness & inclusion
Integrity & anti-corruption
Transparency & accountability, particularly of COVID emergency procurement

The academic literature around public procurement is increasingly data-rich, with a number of comparative datasets providing detailed information on national procurement policies around the world (see below), and recent projects making use of standardised data to carry out large scale analysis of procurement outcomes (e.g. Fazekas and Kocsis 2020). A better mapping of where policy specifically addresses structured, standardised and open data, and where this is available, could add significantly to this research.

Global policy standards supporting procurement data transparency

The widespread influence of the UNCITRAL model public procurement law, and the subscription by many states to the WTO Government Procurement Agreement, coupled with established professional practices, provide a strong foundation for a global norm of transparency at the tender and award stages of procurement. The Open Contracting Global Principles and Open Contracting Data Standard articulate a more comprehensive vision of transparency covering all stages of procurement and articulating in detail the level of information needed to meet key user requirements. Whilst both the UNCITRAL Model Law and GPA have received updates to recognise the development of e-procurement, they stop short of setting out specific data publication practices.

However, a general recognition of the importance of data on procurement is evident in the 2015 OECD Recommendation on Public Procurement, which calls for states to: “Allow free access, through an online portal, for all stakeholders, including potential domestic and foreign suppliers, civil society and the general public, to public procurement information [including] specific procurements (e.g. procurement forecasts, calls for tender, award announcements), and the performance of the public procurement system (e.g. benchmarks, monitoring results).” going on to say that “Published data should be meaningful for stakeholder uses.” The 2020 OECD Recommendation on the Governance of Infrastructure applies this principle to large scale public works, calling for “an adequate degree of transparency throughout the project life cycle, by offering accessible, joined-up, and high-quality open data and free tools, to ensure that disclosure of relevant information is timely and available to the public.”

Global action on anti-corruption has also set out a strong normative basis for the disclosure of structured contracting data. In 2015, the G20 Anti-Corruption Open Data principles described ‘open contracting’ as one of four particular ways open data can be used to tackle corruption. Subsequent declarations and commitments from the G7, G20, OECD, IMF and through Open Government Partnership Action Plans have reinforced this focus on data-driven transparency, particularly in an anti-corruption context. These include commitments from the Japanese G7 Presidency in 2016 to apply Open Data Charter and G20 Anti-Corruption Open Data principles to procurement data, and support for open data and open contracting under the 2019 French presidency of the G7, alongside, the 2020 G20 Call to Action on Corruption and COVID-19 which includes a “particular emphasis on the publication of data, where data is available and publication appropriate, related to public procurement, extraordinary fiscal support to citizens and businesses, and the beneficial ownership of entities awarded contracts or receiving public support.”.

The recently updated Methodology for Assessing Procurement Systems (MAPS) now includes indicators to assess the “publication of public procurement information supported by information technology” (MAPS Initiative 2018) including indicator 7a(e) which references use of open data and data standards. Notably, however, indicator 7a places an emphasis on the presence of systems to support transparency, as opposed to regulatory frameworks to mandate disclosure of information. MAPS also recognises that formal data availability alone does not necessarily constitute transparency. Indicator 11.b looks at the effectiveness of transparency provisions and systems in ensuring “Adequate and timely access to information by the public”.