Information provision

Information provision is one of the subindicators used for zIndex contracting authorities evaluation.

Contracting authorities were asked for basic information on public procurement under the Freedom of Information Act, No. 106/1999 Coll. This indicator evaluates the quality and timeliness of their response. Information requested included details on use of small-scale contracts and other procurement practice. A contracting authority needs to have its expenses well recorded to be able to answer in the first place. Secondly it should be able to reasonably respond to information requests.

An authority in general can only provide information already in its possession. We therefore asked for details on small-scale contracts, as contracting authorities should have their expenses (and related contracts) well documented even below the legal limit and as such it should not be difficult to provide such information.

Willingness and ability to provide information should be one of the foundation stones of responsible public governance. According to the OECD the first principle of best practice in public procurement is to „Provide an adequate degree of transparency in the entire procurement cycle“ (OECD, 2009, p. 18). OECD also states that the contracting authority should not focus solely on the transparency in the procurement process itself, but also in both the pre-tendering phase (needs assessment) and post-tendering phase (measuring success) and openly present the overall coherence of the application of procurement regulations across the organization.

A complete and immediate response of the contracting authority is indicative of two facts:

• the authority has the requested information readily at hand, which may be regarded as a proof of good expense management
• the authority is a transparent and open institution that honours its legal obligation to provide free information access.

It should be emphasized however, that the Information provision indicator does not determine, whether some conduct was legal or not. It only evaluates the ability of public institutions to monitor its own expenses and provide information on request.

Pursuant to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, no. 106/1999 Coll., the authority is entitled to extend the time limit for information provision and also to require payments corresponding to the cost of the information retrieval and delivery. Nonetheless, should the authority use one of these options (proving that the retrieval process was time-consuming and/or costly), it implies that it does not keep track of its expenses.

A mail was sent to the contracting authorities requesting the following information:

1. total volumes of small-scale contracts awarded in 2011, 2012 and 2013 (i.e. three figures)
2. if any purchases were made using a dynamic purchasing system during the period of 2011-2013, what was the total volume of such purchases.
3. if any purchases were made using an electronic marketplace for public procurement during the period of 2011-2013, what was the total volume of such purchases.

Information provided by the contracting authority should be:

1. delivered within the legal limit of 15 days
2. complete: information should cover the entire institution and all years requested
3. free of charge: which would prove that the procurement information is already available in a clear, structured form and its retrieval does not require any additional costs

The received email responses were evaluated based on the following key. If the response did not arrive within the legal limit of 15 workdays (including the cases when the legal reasons for the time limit extension were used), the evaluation was lowered by 25 %. If more than one response was received from a single authority, only the best is considered.

Response classification (with illustrative examples):

• Full disclosure - 100; complete information covering every year of the requested period and the entire corporation. We consider the response sufficient if it involves calculation for small-scale contracts above 100 000 CZK.
  • The contracting authority supplied three aggregate figures for total volumes of small-scale contracts in 2011, 2012 and 2013 respectively, together with answers regarding the use of dynamic purchasing systems and electronic marketplaces.

• Partial disclosure - 75; information provided did not cover all years or all parts of the contracting authority.
  • The contracting authority confirmed the use of an electronic marketplace, but did not provide the volume of purchases made through it.
  • Information on some years is missing.
  • The contracting authority explains that the information provided is incomplete, e.g. due to not including all parts of the corporation.

• Conditional disclosure - 50; the contracting authority is willing to provide information, but have not sent any.
  • The contracting authority requires a payment for the information retrieval or delivery.
  • The contracting authority requires some further information before providing any. This does not include relevant detailing questions, which were answered.

• Non-disclosure - 25; any response that does not include any of the information requested.???
  • Refusal to provide information
  • Promise of later provision with no subsequent action
  • Information is not available and thus can not be provided

• No response - 0; none or automatic email response
  • We received no response
  • We received only an automatic email response

Generally speaking, the larger the institution, the more demanding is the reporting and supervision of its expenses. This indicator may thus discriminate large institutions with usually more complex organizational structure comprising a number of organizational units, as it is more difficult for them to consolidate and manage their expenditure.

• Keep expenses well documented
• Respond to citizen inquiries, most desirably in the manner described - factually, free of charge and on time.