What Needs To Happen To Open Public Procurement – Technology
-Ian Makgill, Founder, Spend Network
Another key element to open public procurement is technology. Getting data into the public sphere can often be over complicated, but it needn't be. If you already have a system for collecting data on tenders and contracts, you'll need to talk to your provider about making that data available openly. The main ...
What Needs To Happen to Open Public Procurement- Policy
-Ian Makgill, Founder, Spend Network
There are three basic requirements for implementing a contracting transparency initiative, the first is policy.
Creating new policies is easy, as long as you never have to implement them. Creating a policy that is designed to be implemented is much harder. Fortunately, the Open Contracting Partnership have, yet again, done all the heavy ...
Quantifying Global Public Procurement: Our Methodology
The Open Contracting Report 'Global Procurement Spend', is to our knowledge, the most comprehensive study of global public procurement yet. We are proud to be the data partner for the project, analysing more than 7 million documents to quantify the $12.9trn size of public procurement, globally.
So, you’re probably wondering how we put a number on it?
Our ...
How Transparency Benefits Suppliers
Why suppliers gain from better data on their markets.
-Ian Makgill, Founder, Spend Network.
Better information creates better outcomes for those bidding into a market.
Which is why incumbents have a significant advantage going into a tender: they have more information. This asymmetry of information is a particular problem in public sector markets, where the process for providing bidders ...
Understanding Global Procurement
Why are we looking at procurement globally, when collaboration between countries is so difficult?
Ian Makgill, Founder, Spend Network
Analysing public procurement on a global scale is, in one sense, hiding to nothing. After all, how useful is it to directly compare contracting in Bejing with contracts let in Bourdeaux? The nature of public administration in both ...
$13 Trillion – The Global Value Of Public Procurement
Ian Makgill, Alex Yeung, Lindsey Marchessault
We often hear about the scale of public procurement. With vast sums of money at stake, it is important that the public procurement market is fair, efficient, and effective.
However, it has been many years since anyone has actually quantified its annual global value. Thus far, there has been no attempt to ...
Our Partnership With Open Contracting
-Ian Makgill, Founder, Spend Network
We're passionate advocates for contracting transparency. Not just because it makes it harder for corrupt officials and their partners, but also because there's good evidence that it makes public markets more competitive and more efficient.
That's why we work so closely with the Open Contracting Partnership, they're the ones doing the heavy lifting ...
Which Country’s Purchasing Changed During The Covid-19 Crisis?
Looking at the data on tenders over the past twelve months gives some insight into the ways that different governments are operating during the crisis. Looking at the twelve largest economies in Europe, we've been able to see how buyers have changed their buying practices since the start of the year.
From the chart above it is ...
What Is The Right Price For PPE?
-Ian Makgill, Founder, Spend Network
What's the right price for PPE gowns and masks? With every Government in the world yanking hard on the same supply chains, prices have increased significantly. The UK Government has made it clear that they're willing to do what they can to get the equipment they need to protect NHS staff.
We've written ...
One Among Thousands – Creating a Dictionary of Public Sector Buyers.
Here are just three among thousands of public sector buyers:
YPO,
JISC,
NOE CPC.
Who are they? What do they do? Are they a private organisation or a public organisation? Every month, we get data for tens of thousands of unique buyer names just like these, from around the world. We answer the questions of who they are and what ...
Data Works: Ensuring Quality Through Validation
When is something right?
We process over 150,000 records a month. Our database now has more than 150m rows in it. We can't view every record when we enter it.
Instead, we validate it. We check that each record has what our users need; a deadline date, a description and a buyer.
We also check that our key sources ...
Data Quantity on Contracts Finder: The Long View.
Covid-19 has shown us the importance of transparency in procurement. A transparent process allows suppliers and buyers to clearly identify each other, and set benchmarks on how others are buying and selling.
Contracts Finder has made great strides in facilitating this transparency over recent years. The Public Contracts Regulations 2015, an Act of Parliament, established the existence ...
Data Works: Creating Machine Learning Models For Categorisation
-Ian Makgill, Founder Spend Network
We're working hard on a new set of machine learning models for categorisation. It has proven to be really challenging.
Developing an accurate categorisation for all our data is our ultimate goal. At the moment, some records have classifications, some do not. Some of the records with classifications aren't correct.
We want our users ...
Details Matter FT.com
Last week, we had an article featured in the Financial Times.
Working with their team is always fantastic.
They cut through to the issues and need to know that everything is right.
The night before publishing, we were discussing one of the figures "Was it safe to say that Hesse really spent €700m on masks?"
Yes, and no.
The original notice ...
Why Beneficial Ownership Data Should Interest You.
The Beneficial Ownership Data Standard (BODS) is an open data standard for publishing data on company ownership and control. You can find out more about the standard and the initiative to publish BODS data here.
Over 80 countries are already committed to using the standard, so we can expect to see more of this data in the ...