Online public procurement reporting

Purpose

To increase transparency and accountability of post-award contract performance to the

public.

Description

Online public procurement reporting provides a centralised website for the public to access
information on public procurement. Information may relate to both the financial and nonfinancial performance status of procurement packages both quantitative and qualitative in
nature. Such reporting is often accompanied by information on the public procurement
system including

procurement policies, regulations and guidelines within which procurement

practitioners operate;

the responsibilities of different public organisations in the procurement process; and

public redress mechanisms such as whistleblower or corruption hotlines.

Online reporting is generally run by the finance ministry or equivalent responsible for the
government procurement system. In specific situations it may also be hosted by the public

organisation in charge of overseeing stimulus/recovery spending or post-disaster

rehabilitation and reconstruction.
It is important to note that online reporting is not meant to duplicate existing reporting
processes for contracting authorities. Rather, it provides a user friendly interface to access
information on contracting authorities. Information is extracted from the governments
procurement systems. In cases of disaster, reconstruction may also include donor reporting
though the latter is made difficult because of different reporting formats.
Experience to date suggests that online procurement reporting has often been used in
emergency situations, e.g. fiscal stimulus/economic recovery and natural disasters
reconstruction programmes. Two examples include Indonesia and Australia respectively. In
Australia, the Treasurer launched a website, Nation Building
(www.economicstimulusplan.gov.au) in March 2009 to provide a one-stop shop for
information on the Australian Governments Economic Stimulus Plan.
In Indonesia, the National Development Planning Agency and Rehabilitation and
Reconstruction Agency launched e-aceh-nias.org in March 2005 as a portal for the reporting
and tracking of donor funds used in rehabilitation and reconstruction financing. In addition,
information on government reconstruction funds was available on the Indonesian Ministry of
Finance Special State Treasury Service Offices website
(www.danarrapbn.org/monitor/asp/laporan.asp, only available in Indonesian).
A few countries have launched more permanent procurement reporting and fund tracking
systems for government expenditure for routine budget operations. The United States, for
example, has launched USASpending.gov to make publicly available information on
spending relating to all federal contracts. This can be searched by contractor, principal place
of performance and contract authority. This is different to Recovery.gov that was launched by
the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board in July 2009 to provide information
specifically on stimulus spending.
The functionality of online public procurement reporting varies significantly between
countries. Information may be searchable by location, department, type of activity, contract
size.

Generic content of online public procurement reporting website

Information on contracts

General project information: project name, project description, total project cost, etc.;

Project management information: organisational division, project manager and contact

details;

Contractor information: company name and contact details;

Implementation schedule: project schedule (payment, deliverables), deviation between

aggregated planned and actual project milestones;

Evaluation framework, comments from procurement staff, date/time of last data

update, expected future reporting update. Can be applied to overall project, cost
dimensions, schedule dimensions, qualitative assessments of contractor performance
etc.;

Payment schedule: expected spending by year, payment, variance from cost

information

Information may be coded to give an overall rating of projects, together with

information on calculation methodology; and

Project documentation: contract documents, meeting minutes, audit reports, etc.

Information on public procurement systems

Procurement laws and regulations;

Responsibilities of procuring and contract authorities; and

Responsibilities of audit authorities.