Open Exchange Day - Breaking the Barriers: Ensuring Access to Public Procurement Markets

Public procurement and competition policies promote access to public procurement opportunities for bidders of all sizes, and recommend facilitating bidding by all credible suppliers, including potential new entrants, to prevent or destabilise potential cartels.

However, in recent years, several reports highlighted declining trends in competition in public procurement markets based on different metrics or simplified indicators such as the number of bids received or single bidding, yet, with different levels of relevance and impact.

This session will focus on the level of competition and access to the public procurement markets, the root causes of low competition and proven strategies and tools to enhance competition.

Digital technologies affect all sectors of the economy and every aspect of life.  Public procurement, as key economic activity is no exception as it has strong ties with the concept of “digital economy”, increasing its transactional value. The digital transformation of public procurement, including the deployment of advanced digital technologies, plays a key role in reducing barriers to access to public procurement markets and improving the transparency and monitoring of procurement processes. Governments are increasingly using digital technologies to improve different aspects of their public procurement systems. For instance, 70% of respondents to the 2024 OECD Public Procurement survey reported using digital technologies for transparency purposes. At the same time, suppliers are increasingly leveraging digital technologies to identify and respond to public procurement opportunities. Competition authorities also increasingly rely on digital technologies to improve their internal functioning.

This session aims at discussing how digital transformation can enhance access to public procurement markets. It will also offer a platform to discuss challenges faced by different stakeholders in the use of these technologies

Data sits at the core of the digital transformation of public procurement. Public procurement is one of the government activities that generates the most data. However, the long-term impact of this digital transformation remains limited without standardised, high-quality and accessible data, highlighting the need for coherent, government-wide data governance strategies.

When appropriately leveraged, data-driven approaches can enhance access to public procurement opportunities, support more strategic procurement decisions, and improve the transparency and oversight of public procurement spending, including through the detection of potential collusive practices. An increasing number of competition authorities are using, or developing, digital filters to screen procurement data so as to detect bidding cartels. Data can also guide day-to-day operations throughout the public procurement process. Despite these benefits, important challenges remain, including those related to data availability, accessibility, quality and analytical capacity. For instance, only 35% of respondents to the above survey reported using KPIs related to compliance to assess whether procurement processes and outcomes are in line with national or other applicable legislation, including competition laws. Also, cartel activity persists.

This session will focus on the strategic role of data to enhance competition in public procurement markets. It will also highlight some key challenges faced by different stakeholders, including oversight bodies such as competition authorities, particularly in relation to data availability, access, governance and analytical capacity.  

Public and private organisations often rely upon a competitive tender process to buy what they need. When bidders prepare their offers honestly and independently, the tender outcomes ensure value for money. Bid rigging occurs when companies conspire to raise prices or lower the quality of their offers. Bid rigging is an illegal practice under competition law. It is particularly harmful in public procurement, as it affects public services, wastes public money and diminishes trust in the public sector.

This session aims at discussing emerging trends in bid rigging and sharing good practices on their detection between different stakeholders of the public procurement system.

13% of GDP is spent on public procurement to provide services to citizens and businesses ranging from health and education to transport. The security of supply is therefore key for governments to provide public services, impacting productivity and economies at large. More resilient public services require better informed public procurement strategies and ensuring a wide access to public procurement markets. This is particularly relevant for governments to prepare for, and be responsive to, external shocks and pressures.

This session aims at discussing emerging strategies to enhance the resilience of public services. It aims also at discussing the key role of public procurement and competition policies in ensuring the resilience of public services.