Consultation Response: NOU 2024:9 - New Public Procurement Act
A new public procurement act is under consultation in the Norwegian Parliament. Over the weekend we submitted our input, emphasizing the importance of free, unlimited, and electronic access to procurement documents to promote innovation in the tender process.
Consultation in the Norwegian Parliament
A new public procurement act is under consultation in the Norwegian Parliament. Over the weekend we submitted our input, emphasizing the importance of free, unlimited, and electronic access to procurement documents to promote innovation in the tender process.
In short, we believe it must become easier to access complete information about public tenders, which today is often hidden behind logins and cumbersome user experiences in proprietary competition systems.
Read our full consultation response below, or download it here.
Consultation Response: NOU 2024:9
New Public Procurement Act
Cobrief AS
Oslo, August 31, 2024
Cobrief AS refers to the consultation on NOU 2024:9 New Public Procurement Act. We have attached some input regarding the section on electronic access to procurement documents:
Cobrief is a Norwegian software company developing a product to make it easier for small and large businesses to participate in public tenders. One of Cobrief's main goals is to increase the number of qualified suppliers in tender competitions, so that public procurers receive more high-quality proposals at more competitive prices.
To leverage the digitalization work done in the procurement process in recent years, it is important that procurement documents are accessible to everyone -- not just for suppliers through manual electronic download, but also for download via third-party software (e.g., through open APIs or by "crawling" content).
The legal text is not clear enough, and e-procurement system vendors deny access to retrieve procurement documents if this is done automatically using software. We have been told this is because the legal text only refers to suppliers' manual access to procurement documents. This limitation means that neither the suppliers themselves nor third-party systems acting on behalf of suppliers can access the documents without manually downloading them from a proprietary e-procurement system.
In the review, the draft legislation includes the following paragraph:
In Section 15-8 Electronic access to procurement documents
(1) The contracting authority shall provide free, direct, and unlimited electronic access to the procurement documents. The notice or invitation shall contain the internet address where the procurement documents are available.
To clarify that procurement documents must also be accessible to third parties and suppliers' software -- which retrieves documents through "crawling" or APIs -- it is proposed that information be included specifying that electronic access shall also apply to programmatic access for third parties -- either in the legislative proposal itself or as part of the preparatory work for the act.
Cobrief believes that legally mandated access to procurement documents for suppliers' software will ensure that Norway can leverage existing and future technological advances that depend on open and accessible data. This way, both the public sector, the private business community, and product companies like Cobrief can create innovation and efficiency in the tender process, which provides better competitive conditions and benefits both procurers and suppliers.
Jonas Klafstad, Co-founder and CEO