Transparency of Recovery and Resilience Plan (PT0016)

What is the problem addressed by the commitment? There are mechanisms and dispersed information that contributes to their proper use due to the nature of the institutional scrutiny of European funds. However, there are still opportunities for improvement in strengthening the analysis, scrutiny, and proof of their proper use, namely: ● The accessibility of language and type of documentation on projects and their financing to audiences with less literacy in these matters; ● The dispersion and redundancy of the information provided; ● The limitations of cross-referencing information with relevant portals and information sources for this purpose.

What is the commitment? Encourage transversal and simplified monitoring of existing information sources, contributing to their evolution and intelligibility with a view to: ● accountability of policy makers and public institutions; ● prevention of embezzlement and corruption; ● increase of the confidence of citizens and companies.

How does the commitment contribute to solving the problem identified? The implementation of this commitment will contribute to: ● Transparency of European funds implementation; ● Prevention of corruption and misuse of public funds; ● Maximising the social impact of the PRR; ● The strengthening of citizens' confidence in the sound management of public funds.

Why is the commitment relevant to the values of the OGP? In the framework of transparency, by developing existing mechanisms and raising awareness of them. Within the scope of accountability, through accountability and monitoring of the allocation of public funds. In public participation through the promotion of citizen participation, seeks to disseminate information and promote greater citizen involvement in the Structuring Plan for the Recovery of the Economy implementation.

Description of expected results ● Evolution of the Portal Mais Transparência, to incorporate information on public investment in different areas, including budget execution data, beneficiaries and impact assessments; ● Development of the linking of the Portal Mais Transparência to other data sources, such as the Base Portal, in an automatic and accessible way to the non-specialist user; ● Support in disseminating the Portal Mais Transparência to different audiences.

Macro activities Start date Completion date 1. Incorporate in the Portal Mais Transparência all the information on public investment in the different areas of implementation of the PRR, including implementation figures, beneficiaries and suppliers. outubro 2021 junho 2022 2. Develop a communication and awareness campaign focused on the functionalities of the Portal Mais Transparência aimed at different audiences, promoting its use. janeiro 2022 dezembro 2022 3. Promote the development of civic monitoring tools to prevent corruption, including public procurement data visualization dashboards and the implementation of Integrity Pacts by the fund management authorities. setembro 2022 julho 2023 4. In an automatic and accessible way to the non-expert user link the Portal Mais Transparência to other data sources, such as the Base Portal. setembro 2022 agosto 2023

Action Plan Review

Commitment 8: Enhance transparency and corruption prevention in the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Plan and application of public funds

For a complete description of the commitment, see Portugal’s action plan: https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/portugal-action-plan-2021-2023/.

Context and objectives:

The EU has made available around 700 billion euros in loans and grants to Member States until 2026 to support reforms and investments that mitigate the economic and social impact of the coronavirus pandemic. [1] The EU has started to disperse money for Portugal’s 16.6 billion euro Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR), which it says will support the green and digital transitions; contribute to effectively addressing challenges identified in the European Semester; [2] and strengthen Portugal’s growth potential, job creation, and economic and social resilience. [3] PRR funding is expected to have a significant positive and long-lasting impact on economic growth as the economy continues to recover, although income remains uncertain (particularly from the tourist industry). [4] The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has taken a significant toll on the Portuguese national economy and its finances.

Portugal is seen as a digital procurement leader. However, there are corruption risks in the Portuguese procurement system that are known to have been exacerbated by the response to the pandemic—such as conflict of interests and a high percentage of direct awards. [5] Portugal’s parliament passed a resolution in January 2021 recommending the government prevent corruption risks during the pandemic such as conflict of interest and inappropriate allocation of public funding. [6]

This commitment has a clear link to the OGP values of access to information and public accountability. It seeks to increase the availability of information on public investment in relation to the PRR via the Mais Transparência portal, interconnect the data with other datasets, raise awareness, and develop citizen monitoring tools to prevent corruption (such as through Integrity Pacts).

This commitment came out of multistakeholder forum discussions following the first draft of the action plan, which did not originally include this topic. [7] Civil society felt the action plan needed to include more bold and innovative commitments. [8] The commitment brings together different actions from the Portuguese National Anti-Corruption Strategy, the National Plan for Administrative Modernization, and the Action Plan for Digital Transition. [9]

Potential for results: Substantial

This commitment has substantial potential for results on enhancing transparency and particularly for increasing public oversight in public procurement. Both civil society and government see this as a very important commitment with potential for significant impact. [10]

In terms of transparency, the commitment aims to publish information on the figures, beneficiaries, and suppliers of billions of euros in public investment by implementing the PRR. Despite being a European leader in publishing information on the tender, award, contract, and implementation of procurement contracts, [11] civil society reports there are still a large number of contracts that are not published as open data, making it hard to assess the formation of contracts, their value for money, or sustainability. [12] Implementing this commitment could ensure that the procurement process for PRR funds meets the highest expectations of transparency. Transparency International Portugal (TI Portugal) see this in itself as a significant step forward. [13] This enhanced transparency and openness in PRR procurement information would enable implementation and potential early results from the ambitious milestone of facilitating civic monitoring tools (such as Integrity Pacts). [14] The Integrity Pacts concept is still a novelty as there has been only one Integrity Pact ever implemented in Portugal. [15] The National Anti-Corruption Strategy 2020-2024 highlighted this first Integrity Pact (for the restauration of the Alcobaça Monastery) as an example for future procurement projects. These pacts would reinforce transparency, ensure appropriate use of public funds, and promote public oversight and trust in public spending. [16] Ensuring the creation and wide implementation of citizen monitoring tools for the dispersal of PRR funds could help to prevent corruption and lessen the chances of conflict of interest, thereby saving taxpayer money and ensuring public works are implemented efficiently. TI Portugal warns however, that public oversight (via integrity pacts, data visualizations, or other civic monitoring tools), is highly dependent on the provision and use of open data and transparency in the procurement process. [17]

At this stage, details of what exactly could be published and how actions will take shape is unclear; this will be discussed at the first working group meeting on implementing this commitment. [18] The Mais Transparência portal, launched in April 2021, already holds basic data in relation to the general state budget and PRR funds. [19] Users can explore an overview of the spending, contracting, and expected results of the PRR, [20] as well as download XLS lists of already-contracted projects and entities under the PRR, by thematic area, region, or institution. [21] It also links to the Recuperar Portugal website which publishes and administers tenders under the PRR. [22] Thus, the Mais Transparência portal provides a central base from which to publish detailed open data on procurement processes implementing PRR funds. Furthermore, civil society foresees that implementing Milestone 4, linking the data to other portals such as BASE Portal (Portugal’s centralized public contracts portal), would further public access to this information. [23] Linking data across different platforms would also complement Milestone 2 on raising awareness about this information, as it would be accessible via different transparency and procurement portals.

Opportunities, challenges, and recommendations during implementation

The aims of this commitment are similar to an ambitious previous commitment on increasing procurement transparency and oversight in Portugal’s 2018–2020 action plan. This previous commitment sought to strengthen transparency in public procurement, apply tools for civic monitoring, publish all contracts in open data by default on the BASE Portal, and publish all supporting documents for contracts. However, the commitment saw limited implementation by the end of the 2018–2020 cycle; authorities will need to ensure this is not repeated and that early results are demonstrated throughout the 2021–2023 implementation cycle.

At the time of writing this report—December 2021— the working group for this commitment had not yet met. They need to determine the timeliness on publishing the data and clarify exactly what data points need to be published in open data and how. While civil society has identified potential solutions for publishing relevant procurement information, technology and institutional constraints (such as legacy software and a lack of training) could hinder implementation. [24] Effective solutions need to consider the ease of public access to the data, the timeliness in publishing it, interoperability with other datasets, and institutional capacity for conducting these activities now and beyond the action plan implementation period.

As well as contributing toward transparent PRR funding, this commitment aims to prevent corruption and misuse of public funds, strengthen public trust in the management of these funds, and maximise their social impact. Civil society analysis has shown 80% of procurement procedures in Portugal are won through direct awards, which open them up to a higher risk of corruption. [25] While it is unclear if transparency alone may change how procurement tenders are awarded, the working group for this commitment could prioritise civic monitoring of projects won through direct awards. Prioritising can also help effective resource use as it is unlikely that it will be possible to apply resource-heavy Integrity Pacts to all procurement projects.

Where integrity pacts are not possible, other civic monitoring tools may facilitate public oversight and scrutiny of PRR funds. Timely publication of detailed open data on PRR procurement processes and contracts is essential if these tools are to provide useful information to the public. Effective publication enables linking information to other databases, comparisons and analysis, and civic monitoring. Italy’s OpenCoesione initiative successfully brings more transparency and public oversight to European Union Cohesion Policy funding; it could be a template for Portugal to ensure transparency and broad public oversight that actively includes citizens, businesses, government, civil society, and researchers. [26]

This commitment could be more ambitious on civic monitoring if it facilitated the reporting and investigation of irregularities in the use of PRR funds to the appropriate authorities. While the current commitment would implement integrity pacts and promote tools to facilitate citizen monitoring, there is space for other formal mechanisms that allow individuals or organizations to report corruption easily and efficiently to the appropriate authorities. This is important as integrity pacts, which require significant resourcing, are unlikely to be applied to all procurement projects. Providing formal channels for reporting corruption would further strengthen one of the aims of the commitment to prevent corruption. In 2021, the Portuguese Competition Authority handed out €120m euros worth of fines in relation to corrupt procurement practices (with fines totalling over €900m since 2017). [27] This shows that appropriate authorities exist that can investigate and sanction corruption in the dispersal of PRR funds. Civil society has also stated that it is crucial that transparent procurement portals make risks for corruption visible to public authorities and the public. [28] The government could therefore learn from Ukraine’s successful Dozorro monitoring ecosystem and create a sustainable community of civic monitors including civil society, businesses, and individuals who can identify and submit reports of irregularities. [29] The appropriate authorities (e.g., the Portuguese Competition Authority) could receive reports and investigate the allegations efficiently, and even support civic monitors via training events to continue building capacity.

· Data on procurement and contracts related to COVID-19 resilience and recovery funds must be made available online in a timely manner. The data must be in open and machine-readable formats like the Open Contracting Data Standard, and with sufficient detail to ensure proactive transparency and civic monitoring. Portugal could learn from the United Kingdom’s implementation of clear commitments to improve quality, timeliness, and relevance of public procurement data and publishing data in the Open Contracting Data Standard. [30]

· The working group for this commitment could look at how Portugal would prioritise the implementation of Integrity Pacts for PRR funds. Directly awarded projects have higher risks of corruption and could benefit from being prioritized. In any case, there needs to be sufficient resourcing to provide Integrity Pacts on various projects from PRR funds. This could also include a training programme to broaden the number of individuals and organizations who can monitor and oversee PRR funding.

· Building on the development of civic monitoring tools, thegovernment could hold trainings on how to utilize and monitor contracting and procurement data, and establish citizen feedback mechanisms to report irregularities. Italy’s OpenCoesione initiative could be a useful system to replicate in the Portuguese context. [31] Similarly, the Ukraine’s public procurement monitoring system (Dozorro) is an example of pushing ambition and empowering citizens to submit feedback and send alerts on possible irregularities and violations of public funding. [32]

Results Report

Commitment 8. Enhance transparency and corruption prevention in the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Plan

Administrative Modernization Agency (AMA); Platform of Civil Society Associations – House of Citizenship (PASC); Transparency International Portugal (TI Portugal)

Context and Objectives

This commitment aimed to increase information and public oversight of Portugal’s Recovery and Resilience Plan. The plan includes €16.6 billion of funding made available by the European Union to the Portuguese State until 2026 to address the impact of COVID-19, support the digital and green transitions, and strengthen the economy. Enhancing transparency and civic monitoring of the dispersal of these funds and related public procurement could prevent corruption and ensure the money was spent effectively. The commitment built on the internationally recognized expertise of Portugal in e-procurement ^[53] as much as it sought to address the high corruption risks identified in this area by ensuring all procurement processes would be made available in open data. ^[54]

Civil society proposed the commitment, and the AMA and two civil society entities co-implemented it. It sought to increase procurement transparency and oversight, an objective included in Portugal’s first action plan, which had seen limited implementation. ^[55] Given its ambition, scope, and collaborative management, the commitment’s design demonstrated a clear open government lens and substantial potential for results. Both civil society and government shared this expectation for significant early results. ^[56]

Early Results: Moderate

Following implementation, the commitment showed moderate early results. The commitment had four milestones on enhancing transparency and access to information as well as promoting civic monitoring of the funds. Milestones to publish data on the Mais Transparência portal, promote its use, and link data to the BASE procurement portal were completed, whereas the milestone on civic monitoring remained underdeveloped.

A new version of the Mais Transparência portal was launched in March 2022 (it was originally launched in April 2021 ^[57]). The Portuguese government announced that it includes greater detail on public expenditure related to the European funds. ^[58] It continued that it would be possible to consult detailed and regularly updated data on each project (such as contracts, the status of the physical and financial execution of contracts, shareholders, and beneficiaries). It said this is the first time that this information allowed the public to consult the evolution of all investments integrated into the Recovery and Resilience Plan and be able to cross-reference it (such as searching for investment values by region or geographic areas covered by a given project). An AMA representative said that information is disclosed about planned values and contracts’ execution in real time, from investments and responsible institutions to projects and final beneficiaries. ^[59] The information on public procurement—global amounts, information about projects and beneficiaries disaggregated and searchable by region and locality, project thematic areas and financial value, responsible public entities and final beneficiaries, etc.—is published in open data formats, including tables and basic graphics and visualization dashboards and is downloadable/exportable. An AMA representative said that by the end of 2023, the Mais Transparência portal witnessed 249,117 visits to its dedicated Recovery and Resilience Plan section. This represents over half the total number of website visits that year (570,959 visits). The AMA representative also shared general user statistics and feedback from users of the Mais Transparência portal, indicating an increase from 32,705 users in 2021 to 254,966 in 2023. ^[60] Annual usability tests helped to improve the interface and usability of the portal. ^[61] According to a civil society representative, the portal is a work in progress that still needs to be developed further, including on information about the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR) and on sharing data about users. ^[62]

Regarding outreach, communication, and awareness-raising activities (milestone 2), AMA reported that a properly defined communication strategy was in place, including a webinar in May 2023 attended by 160 participants. ^[63] Civil society representatives considered that communication activities were insufficient and had little dedicated budget. ^[64] According to AMA, ^[65] the portal is widely referred to in the media, which can eventually contribute to public scrutiny of the data provided, and the government indicated a high number of visits to the portal, at least in the initial months of action plan implementation. ^[66] The portal was developed taking into account accessibility for citizens with disabilities or limitations and was awarded the gold seal of accessibility and usability from AMA and the National Institute for Rehabilitation. ^[67]

Concerning the interconnection with other data sources, the Mais Transparência portal retrieves datasets from the Open Data Portal (dados.gov) when they are published on that portal. Therefore, users can export data and dashboards from the Mais Transparência portal or be directed to their source at dados.gov. ^[68] Additionally, the Mais Transparência portal points to the Public Procurement portal (Base.gov) and thematic websites on Transparency in Health, Transparency in Justice, and Transparency in Tourism. Information about open competitions redirects to the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR) Portal. ^[69]

However, there are exceptions in the publication of information, and the crossing of datasets remains very limited. For instance, information about private companies contracting with the state for a given project (suppliers) is linked to Base.gov, but whether the information is available or not in Base.gov depends on the legislation in force when each contract was signed. ^[70] The two civil society organizations co-responsible for the commitment (TI Portugal and PASC) had encouraged data interoperability with the Public Procurement portal, the Central Register of Beneficial Owners, and the Budget Business Intelligence (BIORC). After implementation, they claimed that interconnections of the portals had not been meaningfully developed beyond a partial connection with budget data, and little or no data crossing with data on public procurement and beneficial owners had been achieved. ^[71] Overall, civil society members interviewed found the quality of data insufficient and the integration of data sources underdeveloped. ^[72]

Milestone 3 related to civic monitoring and participation has not been implemented. A civil society representative said that civil society organizations participated in the co-creation of this commitment but were not involved in its implementation. ^[73] Government departments would propose the datasets for AMA to publish in the Mais Transparência portal, ^[74] while civil society organizations co-responsible for the commitment were not consulted on what might be most relevant to request and publish. ^[75] The IRM researcher did not find evidence of civic monitoring tools to facilitate the detection of irregularities in COVID-19 recovery procurement and contracts and prevent corruption, besides some visualization dashboards and graphics. The 2021–2023 Action Plan Review highlighted this milestone as being a highly important aspect of the commitment. ^[76] The authorities managing EU funding related to COVID-19 recovery were expected to implement Integrity Pacts, but since these authorities were not responsible for this commitment, the pacts were not prioritized to be carried out. 

This commitment at the end of the implementation period had moderate early results. It increased transparency of EU recovery and resilience funding through an effort to disclose quality data in open formats. The publication of new data is expected to be sustained over time (as AMA manages the portal) as part of the continuous evolution and incorporation of new data to dados.gov and the Mais Transparência portal. ^[77] There is still space for improvements in the relevance, scope, and depth of the published information.

Looking Ahead

The relevant work developed by the Portuguese Public Administration around data transparency and specifically the Mais Transparência portal is expected to continue. ^[78] This work would benefit from greater collaboration between the portal’s managing team and civil society organizations to identify priority datasets and develop visualizations and data interconnections that better consider citizens’ demands.

The government could create opportunities for the public scrutiny of EU funds. As initially foreseen in the commitment, the development of Integrity Pacts and other forms of civic monitoring of public procurement, including and beyond EU funds, could be relaunched. TI Portugal has expertise in that area on large procurement projects. ^[79] Additionally, the Association for the Promotion and Development of the Information Society (APDSI) proposed an independent impact assessment service for PRR measures, using information and communications technologies, to prevent corruption and improve management of EU funds. ^[80] Finally, the government could encourage and facilitate the reuse of the information made available in the portal by civil society actors. An AMA representative indicated that starting January 2024, the Mais Transparência portal will provide information on European funding related to Portugal 2030. ^[81]