EU consultation submission: Reducing the number of procedures

This fourth entry is focused on the number of public procurement procedures currently included in the procurement toolbox and how they should be reduced to three: open, competitive with negotiation and a new procedure for services

22. At the moment, a contracting authority has access to open, restricted, competitive dialogue, competitive procedure with negotiation and innovation partnership to award a contract. The latter three were introduced as options to contracting authorities in 2004 (1) and 2014 (2). However, the usefulness of procedures for contracting authorities at the time of choosing one for awarding a contract is not identical:

23. Analysis of current procedure usage shows that while the open procedure dominates as expected, restricted procedure, competitive dialogue, and innovation partnership show limited uptake over the years. While sharing the grounds for use with competitive dialogue, competitive procedure with negotiation usage is 21 times higher, showing what kind of flexible procedure contracting authorities are interested in.
24. The current system creates unnecessary complexity and uncertainty and is ripe for simplification by reducing the number of procedures available. There can be no simplification of public procurement without a willingness to take out some of the things currently included in the regulatory framework.
25. Going forward the procedures available should be rationalised into:
    - Open procedure
    - Competitive procedure with negotiation
    - A new procedure designed for services
26. The first two require no elaboration upon other than revoking the need for grounds for use for the competitive procedure with negotiation. They are already an evolution of competitive dialogue's from 2004 and if the idea was to put a restraint on the use of the procedure, its usage being so above that of the restricted procedure makes the point moot.
27. As for third suggestion, it is time a new procedure is designed from the ground up for services contracts. Existing procedures - in particular open and restricted - were designed for works first and goods second. They are not fit for the procurement of services which struggle to fit in the procedural approach taken by the Directives.
28. Between design contest, light touch regime practice, competitive dialogue and innovation partnership there is enough scope to design a new procedure from scratch that takes into account the learning from their use cases. It is likely that services in particular imply a degree of uncertainty or difficulty in designing technical specifications in advance that require some of the flexibility present in these.
29. The simplification on the number of procedures available for use would reduce the complexity in decision-making for contracting authorities and reduce the knowledge load for economic operators to know how procedures work. This reduction also makes it easier for knowledge and competence on their application to develop.