The widespread adoption of digital tools, with increasing amounts of data being generated, is driving an ongoing digital transformation of the public sector. This transformation has the potential to support the creation of seamless e-procurement systems that enhance transparency, foster competition, and generate cost and time savings. Integrating public procurement with other digital systems and databases, such as finance, budgeting, human resources (HR), social security, tax, auditing, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, could reduce administrative burdens, improve efficiency, enhance accountability, and minimise errors.
OECD countries are using integration to enhance their procurement systems. Nearly two-thirds of surveyed OECD countries (25 out of 35, 71%) report that they have integrated their e-procurement systems with other digital government systems to allow the real-time exchange of information. For example, Slovenia upgraded its public procurement system in 2022 by connecting it directly with the payments portal to increase transparency and accountability. At the same time, there is significant potential to further enhance system integration. Only 2 out of 35 countries (6%) have integrated their e-procurement systems with asset registries, 3 with beneficial ownership databases (9%), and 5 with ERP systems (14%) (Table 11.3.).
Integrating public procurement with public financial management ensures alignment with budgetary goals while also contributing directly to broader financial governance objectives. Such alignment enables better insights into procurement expenditures, helps detect cost overruns, identifies spending trends, and flags potential risks or improprieties. Currently, 31 out of 35 OECD countries (89%) report having public procurement plans in line with budget planning and formulation processes, but only 19 OECD countries (54%) include detailed and realistic descriptions of financial and human resource requirements in these plans. Similarly, although public entities in 28 out of 35 OECD countries (80%) are required to certify budget availability before issuing tenders to ensure there are sufficient resources and prevent procurement commitments from exceeding allocated budgets, only 18 countries (51%) state that they have mechanisms to align procurement reporting with budget execution (Figure 11.4).
Mechanisms to align procurement decisions with medium- and long-term budgetary plans help ensure that procurement commitments are financially viable over time and resources are allocated efficiently. Just under half of OECD countries (17 out of 35, 49%) report doing so fully, while 10 (29%) report partial alignment with some policies and monitoring mechanisms, and 5 (14%) report no alignment (Figure 11.5). This highlights the need for stronger integration between public procurement and financial management processes in this area.
