What is it about?

Public procurement has traditionally dealt with the concept of "quality", which is misleading in many respects and suffers from historical misconceptions. This paper suggests to replace it by the concept of "value" to which organizations can more easily adhere and align it with their policies, namely in the environmental and social sustainability, and to promote innovation.

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Why is it important?

Identifying and properly describing value in policy documents and in calls for tenders allows to buy products and services that are environmentally and socially responsible, local and supplied by small and start-up enterprises in a fair and transparent manner.

Perspectives

Most contracting authorities struggle in achieving their strategic objectives through public procurement because the existing tools of quality award criteria, as they are used traditionally, are insufficient to respond to new stakeholder expectations while ensuring transparency and fairness. This is why this paper proposes to introduce a new pivot concept - value - to translate legitimate requirements into calls for tenders.

Jakub Kodym
Publications Office of the European Union

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: Buying what matters: towards a value model allowing to implement policy preference in public procurement, Journal of Public Procurement, October 2024, Emerald,
DOI: 10.1108/jopp-05-2024-0052.
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