Government consumption of products and services in OECD Member countries is estimated to be responsible for 9 to 25% of GDP. Given the importance of public purchasing, national and local authorities have been paying increasing attention to the opportunities to improve the environment by...

In recent years, a significant number of OECD member countries have introduced initiatives to reduce the environmentally damaging effects of public procurement. Many countries have introduced "greener public purchasing" (GPP) policies in order to increase the recycled content of products or...

Public procurement contracts represent a major share of any country’s GDP and public expenditure budget. For this reason monitoring the compliance and performance of public procurement systems is of the utmost importance. For the purposes of SIGMA Brief 27, monitoring of public procurement...

The decision to exclude an economic operator from participation in a public procurement procedure is a serious one. The impact on the economic operator is potentially significant. The inappropriate exclusion of an economic operator can also adversely affect competition and have an impact on...

SIGMA Brief 29 gives a short overview of the issue of common errors in public procurement. For the purposes of the Brief, errors are understood as infringements of public procurement rules and principles, regardless of the stage of the procedure. The Brief analyses the types of errors and their...

The EU Public Procurement Directives cover three main types of contract: works, supplies and services including design contests. Some contracts will often contain elements of one or more of the 3 types of contract. The Directives contain specific rules that are used to classify these mixed...

The basic presumption in public procurement is that contracts of a specified type and value will be awarded using an advertised, competitive procedure that is open, fair and transparent, ensuring equality of opportunity and treatment for all candidates and tenderers. There are only limited...

Effective procurement strategies, which control costs and streamline processes, are vital to all contracting authorities. Pursuing the best value-for-money in public procurement, while keeping the process management costs down, requires several crucial decisions including deciding on: the...