4 key strategies for making public spending count: Part 2

This post is written by Sophie Abache, Digital Strategist and Content Manager at Open Contracting Partnership.

• The problem: Outdated procurement processes with poor data management and a lack of transparency on public spending.

• Why it matters: Governments and civil servants can be empowered by data for better decision-making.

• The solution: A data-driven approach will help to deliver a strong procurement process which in turn creates sustainable, equitable societies.

Our world runs on public contracts. Whether it’s about better schools, fixing roads, buying protective equipment or delivering healthcare services, we need to make public spending count to create sustainable and equitable societies. But governments have struggled with antiquated procurement processes, poor coordination, and a lack of up-to-date and easy-to-access data on their procurement.

So how do you put in place a transparent, fair, inclusive, and results-driven public procurement system? The new Open Contracting Quickstart Guide pulls from our experience supporting more than 50 governments – from city agencies to federal governments – in implementing effective and efficient public procurement reforms.

"Using paper to track government procurement in 2021 is like keeping in touch with friends and family using semaphore and morse code."

In this four-part blog series, we highlight some of the strategies for how reformers can get up and running with open contracting – from the big fixes to the quick fixes. From setting goals, publishing data, engaging with stakeholders, and measuring success, we will share key strategies, tools and resources, and inspiring examples of open contracting efforts from around the globe. In the previous article, we walked through the first strategy: establishing goals and identifying stakeholders. In this second part, we will take a look at public procurement data and some of the strategies to make best use of it for 21st-century reforms.

Strategy 2. Publish, use, and improve public contracting data.

Let’s face it. Using paper to track government procurement in 2021 is like keeping in touch with friends and family using semaphore and morse code: unless you are looking and listening very closely, you are going to miss something vital.

It’s not only massively inefficient, but it also lends itself for actors to manipulate tenders and awards, and face all the ills of running an opaque contracting system in the world’s largest marketplace - public procurement. Worse still, it leaves out a good number of the best innovative and smaller businesses, many of which are women-owned and led, who can’t access information on opportunities. Citizens and civil society watchdogs are unable to monitor the purchases being made with taxpayers’ monies, shackling them from holding their leaders accountable.

With the huge amount of information on public procurement, open data can be a powerful tool to track what is going on at every stage of the public contracting process. Here we share some tips on how to get better, timely, and actionable data.

Go digital: Ukraine developed a fully transparent national e-procurement platform called ProZorro to improve accountability and get better value for the money that the government was spending. ProZorro has already saved over US$6 billion for more than 3,900 government agencies and state-owned enterprises across Ukraine and counting. Digitisation may not solve all your problems but it has proven to save governments and vendors time and money. Good quality, open data on public procurement allows you to analyse how funds are being spent, supports better and faster decision-making, and enables better oversight.

User-driven dashboard Colombia

Aim to make your new digital public procurement systems open-by-design and user-friendly from the very beginning. As you develop your e-procurement system, think about who will be using the data, from within your agency as well as the companies, oversight agencies, and civil society. This guide outlines the best standards in digital buying for the public sector and some do’s and don’ts to ensure fair and transparent procurement.

Implement standardised open data: One of the main aims of data standardisation is to ease data use. Users get all the tools that they need so they can focus on analysing key questions around value for money, competition, service delivery and transparency baked on high-quality data instead of resolving data issues. The Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS) is a free, non-proprietary open data standard for public contracting that radically enhances e-procurement systems. It was designed to facilitate the publication and analysis of data and documents related to all stages of a contracting process. When you integrate OCDS in your system by design or upgrade an existing system to account for OCDS, you know that your procurement information will be as useful as possible for monitoring and analysis. Your system will become more transparent and facilitate business intelligence, data sharing, and monitoring, consequently enabling policymakers and procurement practitioners to improve value for money, integrity, fairness, and performance of public contracts.

Globally more than 50 countries, agencies, and organisations are publishing procurement data using the Open Contracting Data Standard. Chile began publishing OCDS data in 2018 and has since been gradually expanding its coverage to the full process from planning to spending. “The OCDS has made the complete procurement process visible. It gives ChileCompra users the freedom to analyse and explore the data,” said Guillermo Burr, former Head of Research & Business Intelligence, ChileCompra.

Considering that OCDS is open source and supported by governments around the world, there is a lot of guidance and tools on using, analysing, and improving your data. Inspired? Get started by checking out this OCDS implementation resource and this guide to defining OCDS functional requirements for e-government procurement systems.

Invest in procurement analytics and BI tools: During the pandemic, everyone wanted to know who bought what from whom and how their governments were spending the emergency and recovery funds. Despite the movement restrictions and lockdown, people were able to access data that helped answer these questions from the comfort of their homes using our COVID-19 contract explorer. Beyond getting COVID-19 spending information from their specific countries, they were also able to compare government procurement across regions. Citizens of Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, and Chile can easily use this business intelligence tool to make sense of contracting data. In Colombia, all government contracts can be found using this tool which also has a module to track performance across key dimensions. Other tools include this civic monitoring dashboard in Paraguay and the Chilean procurement risk monitoring portal. In the Kyrgyz Republic, the government developed a business intelligence tool for internal use by the Ministry of Finance’s monitoring unit and the Chamber of Accounts, the agency responsible for audits. “We’ve significantly reduced the time required to collect and analyse data for the Chamber’s annual procurement and budget reports. Up to 60% of audit planning can now be conducted without site visits.” Dinara Duishenkul Former Auditor, Chamber of Accounts, Kyrgyz Republic.

"Good quality, accessible, open public procurement data is undeniably valuable to all stakeholders."

Business Intelligence tool from Moldova

Convincing government agencies on the value of increasing transparency throughout the procurement process can sometimes be a challenge. Get them to realise the ultimate goal of procurement - providing cost-effective, quality, and relevant services to its citizens. The trust between governments and citizens can be improved, and the improved quality of projects and services will ensure that officials actualise their mandate. Good quality, accessible, open public procurement data is undeniably valuable to all stakeholders. It enables everyone, including small and women-owned businesses, to participate in the tendering process. Civil society, the media, and other citizens can monitor and analyse how funds are being spent.

Governments, civil servants, and other administrators are empowered with data for better decision-making. The strategies we shared can set you on the right track to publishing, using, and improving public contracting data.

In part three of this series, we will look at practical strategies for improving stakeholder engagement from pre-market consultations to establishing complaints and oversight mechanisms.

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