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Efficiency and Evaluation

FAST FACTS

Large sum of public resources--thus taxpayers' money--spent on public procurement requires not only sound stewardship but also that it be carried out in an efficient way.

In the pursuit of efficiency gains, governments continuously develop, implement and revise their procurement systems and various mechanisms and tools. 

IN FIGURES

  • OECD countries spent approximately USD 6.3 trillion on public procurement in 2015 and 1% price saving would represent USD 63 billion.
  • Almost all OECD countries aggregate demand through Central Purchase Bodies (CPB) or other joint procurement arrangements in order to achieve efficiency gains through economies of scale. 

DRIVING PRODUCTIVITY AND EFFICIENCY THROUGHOUT THE PUBLIC PROCUREMENT CYCLE, INCLUDING THROUGH EVALUATION

  • Governments continuously seek to increase the efficiency of the public procurement system by adopting new tools and mechanisms and revising them.
  • Demand aggregation often through establishment of central purchasing bodies enables efficiency gains. Various procurement instruments exist that apply according to specificities of contracting authorities' needs and of the goods and services.
  • E-procurement systems are becoming increasingly transactional covering the whole public procurement cycle, thus they contribute to increasing not only transparency but also efficiency of public procurement systems.  
  • In order to properly evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of the system and policies, it is essential to have not only data but also its collection and evaluation methodology--for instance, through developing a set of performance indicators.

OECD SUPPORT

  • 'Efficiency' and 'evaluation' are included in the 12 principles of the 2015 Recommendation of the Council on Public Procurement
  • A workshop was held back-to-back with the meeting of the Working Party of Leading Practitioners on Public Procurement (LPP) on 4th October 2016, which focused on centralised framework agreements as efficiency enablers.
  • OECD conducted a review of Chile's use of framework agreements, which is an increasingly used procurement instrument that allows aggregate demand with certain level of flexibility. The review assessed the strengths and weaknesses of Chile's system during each stage of this procurement instrument--from preparing to establishing and managing it.