Opening Up Public Procurement Data (LT0031)

Status quo and problem addressed by the commitment The Public Procurement Office publishes on the Central Public Procurement Information System (hereinafter, ’the CPPIS’) public procurement notices, reports, annual procurement plans and contracts. Public procurement data are not conveniently displayed for analysis of efficient and transparent use of funds. To change this situation, data on public procurement notices, reports, annual procurement plans and contracts will be opened up.

Problem solution/commitment The problem will be addressed through the development of technological capabilities for publishing public procurement data. • Create raw public procurement data sets and their metadata. • Publish public procurement data on the Open Public Procurement Data Portal. • Generate data from raw data in Open Contracting Data format.

Main objective Open up public procurement data on the Open Public Procurement Data Portal.

How will the commitment contribute to the public problem? The creation of an open Public Procurement Data Portal will provide access for procurement promoters, citizens and businesses to cross-cutting public procurement data, and publicity is the most effective tool to achieve transparency in public procurement.

What steps will be taken towards this objective? Distribute over time planned steps and expected outcomes
Step and its description Expected practical outcome Start date End date 1. Create public procurement data sets (international, simplified procedure and low value procurement reports and contracts) and their metadata Opened up public procurement and contract data 01/06/2020 31/12/2020 2. Build data sets for concessions and defence sector reports and their metadata Opened up data of concessions and defence sector reports 01/06/2020 31/03/2021 3. Publish public procurement data on the Open Public Procurement Data Portal Publicly accessible data suitable for machine reading 01/06/2020 31/12/2020 4. Opening up data in Open Contracting Data format. Opened up data accessible in Open Contracting Data format. 01/01/2021 31/12/2022

How is the commitment relevant to the values of transparency, accountability, and civic participation? Opening up public procurement data is one way to increase the transparency and accountability in public procurement: • it will improve the value added of procurement and help the state to save public finances; • it will help create a fairer business environment; • it will provide for better communication with the public and increase trust; • it will reduce circumstances conducive to corruption.

Additional information The Public Procurement Office is implementing data opening by its own efforts. The data will be later transferred to the Information Society Development Committee in the framework of the project ‘Implementation of open data platforms enabling effective public-sector information reuse for business and creation of data management tools’.

Action Plan Review

Commitment 2: Public procurement data

For a complete description of the commitment, see Commitment 2 in Lithuania’s 2021-2023 action plan here.

Context and objectives

Under this commitment, the Public Procurement Office (PPO) aims to open up all of its historical procurement data in open format. Specifically, the PPO will adopt the Open Contracting Partnership (OCP)’s Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS) to create raw public procurement datasets and their metadata. This proposal received the second greatest number of votes among working group members during the co-creation process (after beneficial ownership).

Although Lithuania has taken steps in recent years to increase the availability and transparency of public procurement, there remains room for improvement. The PPO maintains a Central Public Procurement Information System (CPP-IS) which has had a publicly accessible contract register since 2016. [33] However, TI Lithuania noted in a 2019 report that information published to CPP-IS is only available in PDF and DOCX formats. [34] In addition, the head of e-procurement at the PPO notes that access to the CPP-IS is not convenient for users and is often missing key data on procurement plans, calls, and the overall reports for certain sectors or years. [35] Favorable contracting awards for politically affiliated companies remains a concern. For example, TI Lithuania found out that every fifth euro from state and municipal budgets (1.4m euros) and every seventh euro from EU investments (10,6000 euros) from 2015 to 2018 was allocated to politician-affiliated companies by municipalities to cover publicity costs. [36]

The commitment is closely related to Lithuania’s forthcoming SAULĖ IS e-procurement system, which will replace the current CPP-IS by 2023. [37] SAULĖ IS will include more detailed, standardized information across the whole procurement cycle in open format. [38] However, as a PPO representative notes, SAULĖ IS will contain only new data from 2023 onwards, excluding historical public procurement records. [39] In order to keep historical data open during and after the transition to SAULĖ IS, this commitment will entail the PPO opening its data from the time period starting in 2017 until SAULĖ IS is launched. Until the launch, PPO’s data will be stored at https://atviriduomenys.vpt.lt/ in the OCDS format.

The commitment also includes a milestone specifically dedicated to opening data for procurement in the defense sector. Defense procurement in Lithuania is regulated under a different law (the Law on Public Procurement in Defence and Security) from other procurement (the Law on Public Procurement). According to the PPO, there is a lack of knowledge on the legal grounds for public procurement in defense spending, which can lead to questions about defense procurement being excluded from public procurement analyses or datasets. [40] For this reason, the action plan specifically mentions the defense sector to clarify that procurement from all sectors will be opened, regardless of the particular governing legislation.

Potential for results:Substantial

If successfully implemented, this commitment has substantial potential for results in public procurement transparency. This is because it will fundamentally change the accessibility of public procurement data, by aligning it with the OCDS, and is comprehensive in scope, covering all data that the PPO possesses and across all sectors. Adopting the OCDS will enable citizens to search and access any public procurement data, regardless of its sector, time, or type. It will also result in the publication of significantly more data than was available before the action plan related to the entire procurement lifecycle, including data on procurement notices, reports, annual procurement plans, and contracts. In addition to supporting anti-corruption, stakeholders can use the new data from this commitment to assist the government in improving the efficiency of Lithuania’s procurement and improve the quality goods, works, and services for citizens.

According to OCP, access to standardized open data across the full cycle of all procurements will give civil society the tools and necessary information to monitor the integrity, fairness, and efficiency of public procurement markets. [41] Lithuania has a vibrant data community who can use the data from this commitment to assist in their work on anti-corruption and good governance. [42] OCP notes that there are three key thematic areas where having access to open procurement data could be the most valuable: a) the environmental transition in Lithuania (related to the EU’s Green Deal [43]), b) spending related to the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Plan for Lithuania, and c) health sector spending. On environmental procurement specifically, the Ministry of Environment will work with OCP on using the newly available data for securing and measuring green procurement as part of Lithuania’s green transition. [44]

The publication of open data on defense sector procurement could also yield important results. A 2020 report by Transparency International found that open competition accounted for as little as 0.5 percent of defense procurement procedures, with upwards of 93 percent of defense procurement conducted through restricted tenders and negotiated procedures. [45] Lithuania increased its military spending by 232 percent between 2010 and 2019. [46] The report also notes that the PPO and the National Audit Office are understaffed and lack the technical expertise to effectively monitor defense procurement. [47] Greater public access to defense sector procurement could help alleviate some of the limited capacity faced by the PPO and audit office and could improve public scrutiny and flag any possible corruption risks in the sector.

Opportunities, challenges and recommendations during implementation

The commitment has an ambitious goal to open all public procurement data within a limited time. This is the main concern for the PPO, given its limited staffing and resources. [48] Another possible challenge is public communication once the commitment is implemented. Currently there is no strategy or concrete measures to guarantee citizens are aware of the data that will be opened from this commitment.

Apart from the defense sector, this commitment could offer enhanced public monitoring of government spending as related to the COVID-19 pandemic recovery. The PPO already gained experience in opening relevant sector-specific data during the pandemic in 2020. After it became evident that COVID-19-related procurement might be prone to corruption, the PPO opened its data worth more than 80m euros in emergency contracts. [49] Going forward, it will be important to focus on opening procurement related to the EU’s Green Deal and Lithuania’s Recovery and Resilience Plan (from EU Structural and Investment Funds).

To maximize the results of this commitment, the IRM recommends the following:

Results Report

Commitment 2. Opening public procurement data

Under this commitment, the Public Procurement Office (PPO) aimed to open all its historical procurement data in open data format. Specifically, the PPO planned to adopt the Open Contracting Partnership’s Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS) to create raw public procurement datasets and metadata. The PPO maintains the Central Public Procurement Information System (CPP-IS) as a publicly accessible contract register. [18] However, information published to CPP-IS was only available in PDF and DOCX formats [19] and often missing key data on procurement plans, calls, and overall reports for certain sectors or years. The commitment was closely related to the roll-out of the “SAULĖ IS” e-procurement system, which would replace the CPP-IS by 2023. [20] SAULĖ IS would contain only data from 2023 onwards, excluding historical public procurement records. To keep historical data open during and after the transition to SAULĖ IS, this commitment entailed opening data from 2017.

Although the government’s self-assessment indicates the commitment was implemented, the IRM assesses this commitment as having limited implementation. [21] The PPO did the preparation and compiled public procurement datasets (international, simplified procedure and low value procurement reports and contracts) and their metadata, as well as datasets for concessions, defense sector reports and their metadata. However, this data was not opened during the action plan period. The SAULĖ IS project has been delayed due to alleged breaches of contract by the service provider, Novian Systems. [22] In January 2024, the PPO terminated its contract with Novian Systems for the modernization of the CPP-IS. [23]

Defense and national security are increasingly important areas for corruption prevention in Lithuania, due to the high knowledge asymmetry, the large amount of confidential data, and the increase in spending on defense following Russia’s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine. In 2022, Lithuania purchased goods and services for defense worth 280 million euros, and half of all procurement contracts had secrecy or confidentiality tags. [24] According to TI Lithuania, it is not always clear if those tags are applied reasonably. [25] For this reason, the commitment remains relevant as it foresaw opening defense procurement data for public scrutiny, with confidentiality and secrecy tags when necessary. Depending on the outcome of the legal litigation, the IRM recommends the PPO continue opening this data. The IRM also recommends making public procurement data interoperable with beneficial ownership data and disclosures of public officials’ asset declarations. The launch of the beneficial ownership registry (Commitment 1) presents an opportunity to link beneficial ownership information with public procurement data. For example, data on procurement contractors could be tied to the beneficial ownership register.