Right now, however, procurement is an opaque, outdated process. Worse: It fails to deliver what people need when they need it.
These failures can have a dire impact on both communities and organizations. For example, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority was so late paying nonprofits that provide homelessness services that it resorted to measures like taking out bank loans to make payroll, putting families at risk of losing temporary shelter.
At the Open Contracting Partnership, we work closely with governments across the world to improve procurement and public services. Time and time again, we’ve seen governments’ best efforts limited by outdated, poorly performing procurement software and systems as well as too much continued reliance on paper-based procedures. A recent National Association of State Procurement Officials survey of the top 10 priorities for state procurement officials put “modernizing the procurement process” in first place.
For our new report, we’ve talked to experts in federal and local government across the United States. What they tell us: Everyone is making do; no one is happy. One main problem is that procurement software is usually bought as part of an expensive enterprise resource planning system. Putting these systems in place is often complicated and prone to running late or over budget or — even worse — not doing what was needed. This can look like the state of California’s FI$Cal system, which has taken more than 15 years of development and accrued a total cost of more than $1 billion, with countless cost overruns, numerous schedule revisions and heightened auditor scrutiny.
We also found cobbled-together procurement and public financial management systems that don’t talk to each other, along overworked staff re-entering data because of a lack of standards. We found suppliers entering information multiple times because of poorly designed software. In short, we found public servants doing their best with a well-intended system, forced to rely on labor-intensive manual workarounds to get results.
We all deserve better from our procurement technology. That’s why we’re calling for governments and technology vendors to work toward three principles of human-centered procurement technology:
• Focus on public outcomes: The invisible technology behind procurement needs to be laser-focused on public outcomes, with clear key performance indicators for governmentwide spending on factors such as equity, inclusion, the local economy and climate change.
• Meet people’s needs: Procurement systems need to be simpler, clearer and faster for everyone, whether they’re suppliers, recipients, government staff or the public in general. It should be easy to do the right thing, encouraging rather than discouraging competition, and systems should be designed to simplify collaboration across departments.
• Deliver data we can rely on: The public needs reliable open data to rebuild public trust and to hold government accountable for its spending decisions. Suppliers need easier, fairer and more equitable access to a slice of the trillions of dollars spent on procurement each year.
For us, this human-centered focus on procurement is about making sure purchasing decisions best meet community needs instead of best serving the bureaucracy.
Achieving this vision will require effort across sectors. Government leaders must prioritize better procurement technology. Technology vendors must commit to collaborating on, publishing and adopting industrywide standards so systems can talk to each other with the minimum of effort. And both governments and technology vendors need to collaborate on the hard work of setting — and following — standards for interoperability and ease of use.
As one of our interviewees said: ”Something has gone wrong if our vision of government is constrained by technology.” Making procurement technology human-centered is where the elements of buying better all come together.
Kathrin Frauscher is the deputy executive director of the Open Contracting Partnership, a nonprofit that works to reform public procurement, focusing on digital solutions powered by open data.
Governing’s opinion columns reflect the views of their authors and not necessarily those of Governing’s editors or management.
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