Make public procurement more transparent (FR0067)

What is the public problem that the commitment will address? France spends some €100bn on public procurement transactions every year. The tendering process for public contracts worth more than €40,000 (before tax) must be done electronically via an online platform referred to as a “buyer profile”. Purchasing authorities must ensure their buyer profile offers unrestricted, direct and full access to essential public contract information (23 elements in total; refer to Articles R.2196-1 and R.3131-1 and Appendix 15 of the French Public Procurement Code), except for information that would be contrary to the public interest to disclose (Articles L.2196-2 and L.3131-1 of the same code). Information is therefore openly published on the buyer profile (directly available) in JSON or XML format, which is suitable for data processing by anyone with the skills to do so. The public commitment is to improve data transparency in public procurement by doing the following:  Improve visibility of data for non-experts  Continue to promote the use of open data and release more of it

What is the commitment? The commitment to improve transparency in public procurement will involve four actions: 72 Action 1: Increase the number of elements of procurement data subject to mandatory regular publication from the current 23 to around 40 Action 2: Promote public access to data: - by developing a national platform for accessing public procurement data, region by region, and for searching through data - by regularly posting information on public procurement websites alongside explanatory resources (e.g. tutorials) Action 3: Develop a communications campaign targeting public buyers on the advantages of publishing open data Action 4: Conduct regional pilot projects: - a pilot project on data-driven public procurement (Brittany region) - a project for monitoring environmental and social data (Maximilien public interest group in the Greater Paris Region)

How will the commitment contribute to solving the public problem? Action 1 will involve bringing together the existing categories of public procurement data, namely essential data and annual inventory data. For the buyer, this means having a single dataset with regular releases of data as contracts are put out to tender. Starting from a single dataset containing more data and available more quickly, public access will be improved through Action 2, which will make data available both in real format and a format for the general public that does not require familiarity with XML or JSON. Although buyers are required to publish some of the data they hold, they do not always understand the advantages of doing so, usually due to a lack of knowledge. The goal of Action 3 is to educate them on the subject. This will help them improve the quality of their data and better integrate it into their computer systems. The activities conducted as part of Action 4 will be best practices on the use of public procurement data by local and regional authorities. 73

Why is this commitment relevant to OGP values? This commitment is relevant to:  Transparency - Increasing the number of pieces of data made public for public contracts - Combining data into a single dataset - Improving access by publishing data in a format suitable for the general public  Civic participation - Making it easier for people to use data - Making public feedback possible via the public procurement data platform  Public accountability - Making public buyers more aware of the use of their data for public policy piloting tools - Running pilot projects on public accountability in procurement, particularly on environmental and social issues

Additional information National components of the actions (Actions 1 to 3) will be conducted under the Plan for the Digital Transformation of Public Procurement (specifically the “Interoperability” component of the plan). From an international perspective, the semantic data interchange format used for data will incorporate the requirements of new European regulation 2019/1780 on standard forms for public procurement notices. Open data will also be published on data.gouv.fr in OCDS format (as advocated by the NGO Open Contracting Partnership).

Action Plan Review

Commitment 17. Make public procurement more transparent

● Verifiable: Yes

● Does it have an open government lens? Yes

● Potential for results: Modest