Maximising the Benefits of Effective Competition in Public Procurement in Slovenia

5. Recommendations to improve competition in public procurement in Slovenia

 

Category	Recommended action	Timeframe (short, medium, long term)
Horizontal	Improving public procurement data governance, data availability The Government of Slovenia should take actions to further improve public procurement data governance: By merging the different platforms for publication of procurement opportunities, for submitting bids, and for legal protection in order to create a single-entry platform for all steps of the procurement process. By revising the PPA and the e-Procurement System(s) to review rules on mandatory preparation and publication of procurement plans. By monitoring the impact of the implementation of eForms on data quality, but also competition in public procurement and whether it removed some administrative burdens on both contracting authorities and economic operators. By exploring the possible use of artificial intelligence for data collection and analysis.	Medium/Long
	Improving the monitoring and control mechanisms of the procurement system The Government of Slovenia should take actions to further improve the monitoring and control mechanisms of the public procurement system, by implementing the following actions: The MPA should monitor the efficiency of the new ex-ante transparency mechanism for negotiated procedures without prior publication to measure its effectiveness on the rate of use of negotiated procedure without prior publication. DKOM should leverage the new ex-ante transparency mechanism when receiving review requests from safeguards of interest regarding the use of negotiated procedures without prior publication, and pay closer attention to complaints in single-bidding procedures. Collaboration among entities responsible for monitoring public procurement (DKOM, Court of Audit, Competition Protection Agency, Commission for the Prevention of Corruption) should be further strengthened, particularly through the development of a shared portal to better coordinate data collection and sharing information for certain cases. Each institution responsible for monitoring public procurement should gear monitoring activities further around competition in public procurement. MPA should develop an action plan to tackle issues in competition in public procurement, with concrete short/medium/long term measures. These measures could include actions recommended by this Report, such as the improvement of the e-Procurement system, promoting better coordination among key actors, enhancing the capacities of contracting authorities and economic operators, raising awareness on corruption risks etc. MPA could consider developing a performance measurement framework for public procurement and report regularly on its results.	Medium
Promoting better access to business opportunities for business sector	Promoting good procurement practices for contracting authorities that make procurement opportunities more attractive for the business sector The MPA should promote procurement practices to ensure that contracting authorities are preparing, planning and conducting their procurement procedures in a way that makes the public procurement opportunities more attractive for the business sector, including the following: Strategic procurement planning for seasonal trends: Contracting authorities should develop procurement plans more strategically in order to take into account the impact of seasonality on procurement processes. Improving the role of procurement plan as a market engagement tool in providing information about future procurement opportunities to the market players. Although the preparation and publication of procurement plan is currently not mandatory, such a practice should be promoted for contracting authorities to publish their plans on their website. Encouraging the use of open procedure whenever possible: Contracting authorities should use open and transparent procedures as much as possible and use other types of procedures on a justified exceptional basis. Leveraging the use of ESPD: The Government of Slovenia should ensure that contracting authorities understand that the European Single Procurement Document should be fully digital to avoid undue administrative burden on economic operators by raising awareness on this matter. Favoring MEAT instead of lowest-price as an evaluation method: Contracting authorities should be encouraged to use meaningful MEAT criteria as much as possible and use the lowest-price criterion for standardized goods or well-defined goods and services. MPA should provide training to contracting authorities regarding the use of MEAT criteria, present the benefits and the drawbacks of different approaches and the need to introduce non-price criteria into procurement procedures. Extending bid preparation timeframes: Contracting authorities should allow potential bidders longer and more reasonable time to prepare comprehensive and elaborate bids. Enhancing responsiveness to bidder queries: Contracting authorities should be responsive to potential issues flagged by interested bidders in order to modify unclear or mis-specified tender information. More extended use of lots to promote SME participation: Contracting authorities should try to split tenders into multiple lots with lower estimated contract values in order to better tap into SME bidding potential and encourage SME participation.	Short/Medium
	Engaging with the business sector during procurement reform processes The Government of Slovenia should strengthen the engagement with the private sector during reform processes regarding the public procurement system and build their capacity regarding changes in the system to ensure legal certainty.	Long
	Facilitating consortium and subcontracting opportunities A tool should be developed to help economic operators find consortium and subcontracting opportunities.	Medium
	Creating tailored mechanisms to improve SME participation in procurement The Government of Slovenia should pursue its efforts to further increase and maintain SME participation in procurement. Several measures can be implemented such as specific legislative provision or policy to encourage participation from SMEs in procurement; specific unit dedicated to SMEs is placed at the central government level; training and workshops for SMEs; documentation or guidance focused on SMEs available online; SMEs benefitting from preferential financial treatment etc.	Short/Medium
Improving procurement capabilities of the different stakeholders	Improving the capacities of CPB – Centralized Purchasing Bodies The Government of Slovenia should leverage centralize purchasing to improve competition in public procurement by: Conducting an in-depth analysis of the performance of centralized purchasing and measure its impact on competition. Encouraging the use of DPS to increase participation from SMEs. Develop price monitoring tools for framework agreements operated by the main CPB. Leverage Slovenia’s participation in the CPB Network by participating actively to the activities of the network and gather good practices regarding competition.	Short/Medium/Long
	Enhancing the capability of contracting authorities and improving the support to contracting authorities The Competition Protection Agency should regularly provide data regarding mergers and acquisition, to help contracting authorities with market analysis, and provide training around competition and practices. MPA should examine the needs for the Public Procurement Academy to include a mandatory certification scheme, at least for the first two target categories of job profiles (public buyers), in order to increase the recognition of the profession. Policies and capacity-building should be put in place to optimize contract management practices of contracting authorities. Current legal initiatives such as the 30-day payment policy could be strengthened with further government actions such as prompt payments policy for SMEs. MPA and other relevant stakeholders should provide further guidance and capacity building activities to contracting authorities regarding market analysis, including better use of public procurement data for market and spend analysis. MPA and other relevant stakeholders (potentially involving business and professional associations) could develop model contracts in order curb the practice of imbalanced contracts and build capacity of contracting authorities regarding sound contract conditions and risk allocation. MPA and other relevant stakeholders should train contracting authorities on key topics impacting competition such as collaborative approaches, collusion and corruption etc. MPA and other relevant stakeholders should encourage practical training and collaboration among contracting authorities (on-the-job training, job-swapping, mentoring etc.), so that larger or more experienced contracting authorities could help build capacities of smaller contracting authorities. MPA should further leverage its role as a helpdesk to assist both contracting authorities and economic operators during procurement procedures. Collaborative approaches among contracting authorities (especially for small contracting authorities) in public procurement should be encouraged by policymaking authorities, through awareness-raising campaigns, trainings etc. MPA should help improve the organizational decision-making speed of buyers that take more than 63 days per bid on average through capacity building or training	Medium