Open Procurement (NZ0023)

Commitment 12: Open procurement
Objective:
To publish the data on government-awarded contracts that is currently
publicly available on the Government Electronic Tenders Service (GETS) as
open data.
Ambition:
It will be easy for people to find and access published GETS information
for contracts awarded by government agencies that are subject to the
Government Rules of Sourcing. This will increase the level of trust the
public has in procurement as it will be possible to analyse what contracts
government agencies are awarding, what the expected spend is and which
businesses have been awarded contracts.
Status quo:
Currently after awarding a contract, government agencies must publish
a Contract Award Notice10 on GETS. This notice details information
about the successful tenderer and the expected spend under the contract.
Anyone can view these award notices, however it is difficult to collate the
data from them due to the format in which they are displayed. Lead Agency: Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
Timeline: October 2018 – June 2020
Commitment 12 Open procurement
OGP Values Transparency,
Accountability, Technology
and Innovation
Verifiable and measurable milestones to fulfil
the commitment
Start date End date
Design with Stats NZ and the public a more usable
format for this data.
October
2018
June 2019
Publish the results of the first milestone, for
example information on what format the data will
be released in and if we need to publish supporting
material to help people interpret the data.
July 2019 December
2019
Publish the Contract Award notices online in the
agreed usable format.
June 2020 On-going

12. Open procurement [136]

Objective: “To publish the data on government-awarded contracts that is currently publicly available on the Government Electronic Tenders Service (GETS) as open data”.

Milestones:

1. “Design with Stats NZ and the public a more usable format for this data”;
2. “Publish the results of the first milestone, for example information on what format the data will be released in and if we need to publish supporting material to help people interpret the data”;
3. “Publish the Contract Award notices online in the agreed usable format”.

Start Date: October 2018

End Date: June 2020

Context and Objectives

The objective of this commitment is to publish as open data government-awarded contracts data currently available on the Government Electronic Tenders Service (GETS). [137]

This commitment considers the issue of transparency of New Zealand’s public procurement. Transparency International New Zealand’s National Integrity System Assessment 2013 noted “serious shortcomings in transparency because, in a highly decentralised system by international standards, systematic procurement records are not readily available within departments and agencies” [138] and endorsed this in its update in 2019. [139] The 2016-2018 IRM Progress report recommended increased transparency of public procurement. [140] The Open Contracting Data Standard has had wide uptake outside of New Zealand, [141] Asia Pacific OGP countries are committing to open up public contracting and procurement processes, [142] and Australia’s 2^nd OGP National Action Plan commits to using the Open Contracting Data Standard schema to publish an additional AusTender dataset on data.gov.au. [143]

This proposal is a first step towards open procurement by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), but it is confined to contracts awarded using the GETS Service and already listed online but not as open data. Its ambition statement is narrow – it seeks increased trust in procurement and better access to information but does not articulate higher-level outcomes, for example, the potential economic benefits to New Zealand that public notification of contracts brings. This work does not extend to government’s numerous other procurement processes such as self-sourcing by agencies, the panel procurement process and agencies procuring more work directly from incumbent vendors. The IRM researcher was advised that publicly disclosed procurement seems to account for only about a quarter of the total value. [144]

The commitment meets OGP’s access to information and civic participation values by proactively releasing government information and seeking input from interested members of the public. It will co-design and publish with government and the public an open format for the contract awards data listed on GETS, seek feedback and agreement on that format and publish the contract award notices in the agreed open data format.

The milestones are specific enough to be verified through a subsequent assessment process, but the commitment’s scope is too narrow to deliver on its title of ‘Open Procurement’. The IRM researcher notes also that GETS’ current online notices, which list the name of the successful contractor but no other details, such as price, do not meet the requirements of Rule 45 of the current Government Rules of Sourcing. [145] Access to full details currently requires registration on the GETS website, which stands in comparison with the level of detail about the New Zealand government’s social service contracts set out on the view-only website contractmapping.govt.nz. [146] While a good start, this commitment has little of the ambition sought by the National Integrity System Assessment and NZRise [147] and illustrated by those countries taking up the Open Contracting Standard.

To meet the commitment’s ambition as stated, all listings must include the details specified in Rule 45 of the current Government Rules of Sourcing and its replacement Government Procurement Rules, [148] agencies need to be mandated to list all their awarded tenders as open data and the public must be able to access the open contract data without needing to join GETS. If implemented fully as designed, the potential impact will be minor because only a very small percentage of government tenders awarded will be published as open data on GETS. Extending it to all government tenders could be transformative though the country’s de-centralised procurement system could complicate the feasibility of publishing all government contracts in open data.

Next steps

If this commitment is carried forward to the next action plan or if there are improvements to the implementation of this commitment, the IRM researcher recommends that:

• MBIE considers this commitment as a pilot and if feasible commences works with the public and government agencies to extend it to cover all awarded government contracts; and
• MBIE considers publishing historical contract data that can allow users to analyse patterns of procurement, as well as incorporating protocols to guide how documentation from tenders is archived once the contract is awarded. This will support monitoring and accountability regarding the outcomes of the procurement process.

The IRM researcher recommends that consideration of a commitment is fed into the development process for the next action plan to work with business, the public and government agencies to:

• release all awarded government contracts as open data;
• adopt the Open Contracting Data Standard; and
• update the Government Procurement Rules accordingly.

12. Open procurement

Complete:

Aim of the commitment

This commitment aimed to publish as open data the government-awarded contracts data currently available on the Government Electronic Tenders Service (GETS). [152]

Did it open government?

Marginal

While this commitment is substantially complete, there is only marginal change in government practice on publishing contract data. The commitment’s limited scope has not increased visibility of the government's total procurement expenditure. Procurement award notices published by government agencies on GETS have been released as open data in .csv format since 1 July 2019 and are updated quarterly, [153] representing positive progress. However, they only cover the 148 of NZ’s 2,901 government agencies which must publish their contract notices on GETS. There is also no mandate for contract award notices for the government’s secondary procurements to be published. [154] Transparency International NZ reports that the GETS contract notice releases only represent just 2.5% of the total annual government expenditure. [155]

Reports generated from the GETS database provide open data on GETS award notices, GETS tenders by region, GETS supplier data, and GETS product categories. In July 2021, a stand-alone file of GETS historic data (award notices from July 2014 to 30 June 2019) was released, [156] and the GETS schema and documentation [157] are also available.

The GETS documentation states that the reports cover tenders issued by agencies that are mandated, expected, and encouraged to use the GETS tendering service. Although the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) has no mandate to enforce the Government Procurement Rules, it reports that it is seeing higher levels of data quality from agencies. [158] However, as there is no requirement for agencies to list the successful tenderer or the price of the contract, the details are inconsistent. MBIE reports that since it moved the GETS system to Azure in July 2021, agencies’ compliance has been better. [159] It expects that its plans for a new user interface and new fields will “make it easier for users” and that its new Solutions Architect’s integration of procurement products, including adopting the Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS), will result in better, more standardised, and compliant data.

This commitment is starting to change government practice on disclosing procurement data. The public will not see tangible change until the user interface for agencies is simplified, the proposed integration and necessary adoption of the OCDS is completed, and the Government Procurement Rules give MBIE power to enforce compliance. Even then, the actual GETS contracts will not be available, and certain procurements are exempted. Exemptions include procurements through a panel of suppliers (Government Rules of Procurement 57), all-of-government contracts (Rule 58), syndicated contracts (Rule 59), and common capability contracts (Rule 60). [160]

Transparency International New Zealand’s analysis of the data from July 2019 to March 2021 revealed that there are two fields in GETS that are key to the transparency of government procurement – the contracted supplier and the value of the contract. In 2020, only 2,043 (78%) of 2,620 notices properly reported supplier information and only 820 (31%) included information on the value of the contract. The annual total of the contract values reported on GETS in 2020 was $1.016 billion, which is just 2.5% of the total annual government expenditure. The financial details of 97.5% of government expenditure are outside the mandate of the Government Procurement Rules. [161]

Without this visibility, and until the Rules are more comprehensive, the public must rely on external monitoring, e.g., by the Office of the Auditor General on the Ministry of Health’s procurement of a national immunisation system [162] and COVID-19 testing services. [163]

Given the limited reporting, this early work has only effected marginal change in government practice and in opening procurement data. Major change can be achieved when all government procurement data, including actual contracts, is released as open data. This would span contracts awarded via tendering on the GETS platform, as well as those awarded via panels of pre-approved suppliers and those directly awarded without public tendering.