OCDS Implementation (UK0079)

Commitment Text: To investigate implementation of the Open Contracting Data Standard
(OCDS) in Central Procurement operations.
Objective: To ensure data available on contracts awarded is available for use by stakeholders.
Status quo: An international standard - Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS) has been
introduced around contract data and this has not been implemented locally.
Ambition: The ambition is to establish whether it is practical for Department of Finance Central
Procurement Directorate (CPD) to implement the Open Contracting Data Standard moving forward.
Milestones:
1. DoF CPD to explore a pilot project implementing the Open Contracting Data Standard
(January 2017 December 2017)
2. Develop visualisation tool with contracts data from CPD as part of the Open Data Strategy
(January 2017 December 2017)

3. To investigate implementation of the Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS) in Central Procurement operations (Northern Ireland)

Commitment Text: To investigate implementation of the Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS) in Central Procurement operations.

Objective: To ensure data available on contracts awarded is available for use by stakeholders.

Status quo: An international standard - Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS) has been introduced around contract data and this has not been implemented locally.

Ambition: The ambition is to establish whether it is practical for Department of Finance Central Procurement Directorate (CPD) to implement the Open Contracting Data Standard moving forward.

Milestones:

1. DoF CPD to explore a pilot project implementing the Open Contracting Data Standard (January 2017 December 2017)

2. Develop visualisation tool with contracts data from CPD as part of the Open Data Strategy (January 2017 December 2017)

Responsible institution: Department of Finance

Supporting institutions: N/A

Start date: January 2017

End date: December 2017

Commitment Aim:

The Open Contracting Data Standard is a global, non-proprietary data standard structured to reflect the complete contracting cycle that allows users and partners around the world to publish shareable, reusable, machine-readable data, to join that data with their own information, and to create tools to analyse or share that data.^{[Note 165: Open Contracting Partnership ‘Open Contracting Data Standard: Documentation', http://standard.open-contracting.org/latest/en/ ]} It is rated according to a series of stars that set out the level of openness and interaction of the data (i.e. if it is linked). The Standard makes procurement and contracting more transparent and allows the public to examine, scrutinise and hold to account government contracts. The UK has championed this Standard across the world and has formed commitments in all three of its action plans.

If completed, the commitment would open up all contracts in Northern Ireland to this standard and would allow the public to visualise and scrutinise all of the Northern Irish government's contracting arrangements.

Status

Midterm: Substantial

At the end of the first year, the government highlighted good initial progress toward implementation of the Open Contracting Data Standard, with some exploratory work to see how government systems measure up.^{[Note 166: Nick Cochrane, Department of Finance and Dr. Kelly Wilson, Head of Public Sector Reform Division, Dept. of Finance, 15 August 2017; Colm Burns and David McBurney, Northern Ireland Open Government Network, 11 August 2017. ]} Currently all contracts in Northern Ireland meet the requirements for 1-star data, meaning they are available on the internet under an open license. It was unlikely that the deadline to implement a new platform for viewing contract data would be met by December 2017, but work was being done to ensure data is compatible with current visualisation.^{[Note 167: Public Sector Reform Division (2017), Northern Ireland (NI) Narrative for inclusion in UK Open Government, National Action Plan Self-Assessment Report, August 2017, https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/669433/Northern_Ireland_Input_to_3rd_UK_Open_Gov_National_Action_Plan_-_Self_As..._-_Copy__2_.pdf]}

End of Term: Complete

Note: the final government update was not available at the time of writing this report.

Given the commitment was exploratory, the December 2017 update indicates that the commitment is complete. It outlines that the 2016/17 contracts data had been published, with contract beginning and end dates, and names and addresses of contractors published on two portals, eTendersNI and OpenDataNI.^{[Note 168: Ibid. ]} There was also work done to ensure ‘members of the public' can now ‘view a location map showing the distribution of contractors' as well as a new process for publishing poor performance. At the time this report was written, contracts had been updated on the portal through March 2018.^{[Note 169: Open Data NI (2018), https://www.opendatani.gov.uk/dataset/contracts-awarded-by-central-procurement-directorate-in-the-2016-2017-year]}

The work initiated under this commitment will continue beyond the OGP cycle, as the Central Procurement Directorate (CPD) intends “to explore ways to reach the OCDS Intermediate Disclosure Level (three-star)'. The CPD did not necessarily have influence over what happened with other bodies, though the update indicated this may change in the future.

Did It Open Government?

Access to Information: Marginal

The commitment has increased access to information in this area. The government considerably increased the quantity, quality and variety of data available on the two contract awards portals. All contracts were also updated regularly. The new visualisation tool also helped users visualise the contracts data in new ways.

Carried Forward?

This commitment has not been carried forward.