Open Contracting (NL0034)

Action point: Open Contracting (OCDS pilot)
Start and end dates of the action point: 1 July 2018 - 30 June 2020
Main action owner (organisation) Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (BZK)
Description of the action point
Which social issue does the action point seek to address? The international Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS) came into existence in 2014. Initially, the first signatories of the standard mainly used it to fight corruption by bringing information about public procurement into the open in a uniform and transparent way as Open Data. Another important reason is that OCDS provides an insight into how the performance of government contracts is monitored.

The Dutch Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (BZK) sent a letter on 24 June 2015 informing the House of Representatives about how the central government's procurement information is made public and what the government's policy is in this regard. This policy focuses on promoting active openness and reusing open data, including the central government's procurement data.
What is the action point? The action point entails a pilot in which two public procurement procedures, initiated by the central government, are selected and the extent to which the OCDS is, and can be, complied with for these procedures is checked. One of the procurement procedures has already been completed and the other one is still to be started. For the procurement procedure that has already been completed, the extent to which the OCDS has been complied with has been verified. As regards the new procurement procedure, a study is being made of what is needed in order for it to be carried out in accordance with the OCDS. Weighing the costs and benefits of full compliance with the OCDS is part of the pilot.

The pilot serves three goals:
a. To establish how and where the Netherlands complies with the OCDS
b. To indicate any improvements that can still be made by the central government as regards the OCDS.
c. To indicate where the Netherlands is a “Best Practice”.

The pilot offers the opportunity to share knowledge and expertise at an international level.
How will the action point contribute to remedying the social issue? The pilot offers the opportunity to contribute to the primary objective of the Programma Doorontwikkeling Rijksinkoopstelsel (Programme for further development of the national procurement system): “To create added value for society”. The Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations indicated that openness of the procurement information of the central government will contribute to better public governance and democratic processes (June 2015). The national procurement system ties in with this government policy by responding to the wish of citizens for more transparency as regards government spending and the desire of companies for procurement information about the government market for their business operations.

This pilot is also a good way to draw attention to the added value for society of the national procurement system which will be an extra incentive to bring about changes together.
Why is this action point relevant to OGP values? The pilot supports the OGP values of transparency and public accountability.

The pilot will lead to transparency. Information about government contracts released in the OCDS will lead to information which is described properly and in sufficient detail, is well suited to being reused as open data, and is easy to compare.

The detailed description of the data and the availability of this data as open data enables the data to be used for visualisations and other forms of insight, enabling public accountability.
Additional information The lead time of the pilot is approximately two years and the project group members are expected to be required to spend a couple of weeks on it. This can be paid “out of pocket”.
Milestone with a verifiable result (please note: SMART) Start date: End date:
Project plan for pilot + decision-making 01 July 2018 01 September 2018
Start of project team and implementation of pilot 01 September 2018 30 June 2020
Interim report on pilot + decision-making 01 March 2019 01 July 2019
Final report with recommendations 01 February 2020 30 April 2020
Decision-making about recommendations 30 April 2020 30 June 2020
Contact information
Name of the responsible person representing the main action owner Peter Specker
Position, organisation unit Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties/DGOO / IHFR/Inkoop en Aanbesteden/manager Inkoopinformatie Rijk (Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations/Directorate-General for Public Administration/ Procurement, Housing and Facilities Policy/Procurement/Government Procurement Information Manager)Email and phone number Peter.Specker@minbzk.nl
Other actors involved Authorities involved • BZK/DG Bestuur, Ruimte en Wonen/Directie Democratie en Burgerschap/Leer en Expertisepunt Open Overheid (Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations/Directorate-General for Governance, Space and Living/Democracy and Citizenship Department/Learning and Expertise Centre on Open Government)
Expertise: open data

• EZK/DG Energie, Telecom en Mededinging/Directie Mededinging en Consument (Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy/Directorate-General for Energy, Telecommunications and Competition /Competition and Consumers Department)
Coordination of the project plan and intermediary for
contact with TenderNed

Other organisations or bodies (such as community organisations or the private sector) • Open contracting partnership (hereinafter: OCP)
Sharing experience with OCDS/exchanging best practices

• HIVOS
Experience with OCDS/assessing feasibility and data

• Open State Foundation (OSF)
Introduction into network/providing information about compliance with OCDS

• TenderNed/PIANOo
Possibly providing information about the use and accessibility of data from TenderNed

• OCDS helpdesk
Providing support on giving access to data/expert insight

10. Open Contracting (OCDS pilot)

Language of the commitment as it appears in the action plan:

The action point entails a pilot in which two public procurement procedures, initiated by the central government, are selected and the extent to which the OCDS is, and can be, complied with for these procedures is checked. One of the procurement procedures has already been completed and the other one is still to be started. For the procurement procedure that has already been completed, the extent to which the OCDS has been complied with has been verified. As regards the new procurement procedure, a study is being made of what is needed in order for it to be carried out in accordance with the OCDS. Weighing the costs and benefits of full compliance with the OCDS is part of the pilot. The pilot serves three goals:

1. To establish how and where the Netherlands complies with the OCDS
2. To indicate any improvements that can still be made by the central government as regards the OCDS.
3. To indicate where the Netherlands is a “Best Practice”.

The pilot offers the opportunity to share knowledge and expertise at an international level. [41]

Milestones

10.1. Project plan for pilot + decisionmaking

10.2. Start of project team and implementation of pilot

10.3. Interim report on pilot +decision-making

10.4 Final report with recommendations

10.5 Decision-making about recommendations

Start Date: July 2018     

End Date: June 2020

Context and Objectives

Government procurement of goods and services is significantly important to global business. The Netherlands are no exception, with an estimated government purchase volume of EUR 73.3 billion annually. [42] Dutch development aid also supports projects geared to open contracting in a variety of countries. [43] An essential feature that underpins many of those initiatives is the adoption of the Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS), a standard currently not used by the Netherlands itself. [44] In 2015, a motion in parliament asked that future government procurements would correctly deal with relevant open standards. [45] In 2017, a study by the Ministry of Interior stated that as far as public contracting was concerned, there was little awareness of such standards within relevant agencies. [46]

This commitment therefore aims to pilot OCDS and explore if the Netherlands can comply with the standard. The work is carried out by the Ministry of Interior in partnership with relevant CSOs (such as Hivos). The commitment is relevant to the OGP values of access to information, civic participation, and technology and innovation for openness and accountability. At the same time, the commitment’s activities and milestones, though specific and verifiable, are not driven by explicit objectives to improve efficiency in purchase management or to resolve specific risks such as corruption or over-pricing.

If successfully completed, the pilot could improve general awareness of the practical usability of OCDS, as well as promote broader use of the standard in the Netherlands. In turn, this is considered conducive for improving access to information on government spending and could leverage broader citizen participation and scrutiny over procurement. It could also support the government’s efforts to mitigate corruption risks and improve cost-efficiency in procurement contracts. However, the objective is quite general, namely indicating where the Netherlands is a best practice in open contracting. In addition, it is unclear what the pilot itself exactly entails, aside from exploring what OCDS means for Dutch procurement, or if it will look at a specific sector or area of government procurement. Furthermore, the commitment explains how topics such as sustainability and social impact are to be integrated but does not explain in detail how this will be operationalized. Finally, it remains unclear how the completion of the pilot could translate into the full adoption of OCDS usage in the Netherlands. As such, the potential impact has been scored as moderate.

Next steps

The IRM researcher recommends the following:

1. Perform a more detailed needs assessment and draw on existing studies and evaluations in the Netherlands on which areas of public procurement are considered improvable. This would include a risk analysis and concrete priorities for future action. Such a scoping exercise should ideally seek the consultation of private parties (bidding on government contracts successfully and unsuccessfully), civil society, and procurement experts.
2. Select concrete tenders for specific areas or government functions for inclusion in the pilot. Moreover, clear criteria could be identified in consultation with the parties mentioned above and should seek to clarify whether OCDS compliant systems can help resolve or mitigate the issues identified in the needs assessment.
3. Given the government’s explicit ambition to use its spending to also influence thematic issues such as sustainability, innovation, and social return, the IRM researcher recommends developing tools and instruments that could help gauge success in this respect. This could be done by providing answers to questions on the weight such themes should carry in designing tenders and evaluating bids, what to do in case of conflicting interests, and what exceptions should apply and why. These deliberations could be beneficial to the broader discussion on how governments source their goods and services, and could feed into discussions at the political level which are needed to drive eventual legislative change.

[41] The complete text of this commitment, https://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Netherlands_Action-Plan_2018-2020_EN.pdf

[42] https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/rapporten/2016/09/08/het-inkoopvolume-van-de-nederlandse-overheid

[43] Hivos people unlimited, Open Up Contracting, https://www.hivos.org/program/open-contracting/

[44] Open Contracting Partnership, Worldwide, https://www.open-contracting.org/why-open-contracting/worldwide/#/nl

[45] https://zoek.officielebekendmakingen.nl/kst-33326-21.html

[46] https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/rapporten/2017/02/15/rapport-kenniscentrum-open-source-software

Commitment 10. Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS) pilot

Complete

To implement this commitment, a project group examined the extent to which the central government’s procurement office complies with OCDS and identified possible areas for improvement and good practices where the Netherlands excels. The group prepared a report in May 2019, concluding that the Netherlands is largely compliant with OCDS. It recommended to further explore how other (European) countries deal with open procurement, to consider setting up a communication platform for Dutch open procurement data to foster broader dialogue on this data, and to consider disclosing national procurement data in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format. Following the report, the central government exchanged ideas with the Open State Foundation, the Open Contracting Partnership, and HIVOS on how to take this work further. This resulted in a grant application to the European Commission in late 2019 to establish a platform around government procurement data where interested parties (such as citizens, private companies, or journalists) can easily search for procurement information and enter into a dialogue around this data. The grant was awarded in 2020 and the Netherlands has included the future work as a commitment in its fourth OGP action plan (2020-2022). [26]

Overall, this commitment had positive impact on open contracting in the Netherlands. What started as a careful investigation into open contracting practices in the country culminated in a joint project proposal where both the central government and national and international CSOs are collaborating around open government issues. Different stakeholders have indicated in interviews that both government officials and CSOs valued this collaboration and considered it mutually beneficial. [27] At the same time, it is unclear to what extent the commitment has resulted in identifying what, if any, further decision making is needed to further improve open contracting. Good practices and procurement-related obligations under EU regulation could also have played a larger role in this work. [28]