By Alex Yeung. Part 1: The Matching Process Linking entities is a common theme in procurement data, but it is a significant problem in the UK. The concern with entity matching is the cost of false positives. This issue is particularly stark when finding the beneficiaries of money. The main challenge is that name matching …
By Fiona Hunt It’s understandable that for many SME’s, doing business with government is not high on their prospecting list. In the media, most of the coverage around government suppliers tends to be about big consultancies and major multinational technology companies. It’s understandable then that many smaller businesses would consider becoming a supplier to government …
In late September 2020, the UK Government released a new plan for delivering greater social value through its procurement processes. The new measures come into place in January 2021, and have lofty goals including jobs growth, greater prosperity through broad economic growth, and even tackling climate change. These measures will be introduced through a …
New Government Measures Include Social Value in Procurement Read More »
–Fiona Hunt. This simple graph gives us a fascinating insight into the respective size of government spending globally. From the recent report by Open Contracting Partnership and Spend Network, on quantifying global spend, this graph illustrates the dominance of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China)when it comes to government spending, making up 40% …
Governments spend a lot. How we spend this money is important for a whole slew of reasons. We often overlook how well procurement functions on a day to day basis. In most countries, our streets are lit, our roads are repaired, our hospitals have drugs and public websites are accessible for all to use. This …
–Ian Makgill Giving away all your data for free sounds like a bad idea, especially when you’re a business whose aim is to sell data. It sounds counter-intuitive, as if our principles have overridden our ambitions and we’re doing something that will ultimately damage us. We sound like people whose hearts rule their heads. Nothing …
By Fiona Hunt. The recent report on global government spending by Open Contracting Partnership and Spend Network, brought to light for the first time, the extraordinary size of the global procurement market and, alarmingly, the lack of open contracting. Of the $13 trillion spent per annum by governments globally, only $362billion (2.8%), is published openly. …
UK Leading Procurement Transparency Alongside Columbia and Ukraine. Read More »
–Ian Makgill, Founder, Spend Network. Our last post on what needs to happen to open procurement covers the skills you need to maintain a procurement publication service. Governments often focus too much on the technology needed to publish procurement data, ignoring the need to maintain and run the service in the long term. Once set …
What Needs To Happen to Open Public Procurement- Skills Read More »
–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. …
What Needs To Happen To Open Public Procurement – Technology Read More »
–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 …
What Needs To Happen to Open Public Procurement- Policy Read More »
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 …
Quantifying Global Public Procurement: Our Methodology Read More »
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 …
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 …
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 …
$13 Trillion – The Global Value Of Public Procurement Read More »
-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 …
