Government IT contracts awarded in 2019

Only 22 out of 113 IT contracts awarded from July to December 2019 contained information about the value of the contract.  $3.8 million (37%) was awarded to 13 NZ-owned companies, and $6.5 million (63%) was awarded to 9 companies that are not NZ-owned.  More detail follows below.

The data about contract awards published in GETS is now released as open data by MBIE, and an earlier article looked at the first release in November 2019. A total 1,449 awards for the period July to December 2019 have now been published, and this article looks in detail at 135 awards in the “IT sector”, specifically awards in the following categories: 

• Business and corporate management consultation services
• Business function specific software
• Communications Devices and Accessories
• Computer Equipment and Accessories
• Computer services
• Content management software
• Data services
• Information Technology Broadcasting and Telecommunications
• Management advisory services
• Management and Business Professionals and Administrative Services
• Project management
• Software
• Software or hardware engineering

The analysis is patchy because of the quality of the data entered into GETS by government agencies.  For example, 37 RFPs are reported as “not awarded” in the Award Type field, although 13 of them have details of the award in the comments field.  In at least one case, the details in the comments field are different from those in the main database.

In total 113 award notices were published, with information on the company that received the contract.  We have analysed the awards to assess the use of NZ owned companies by government agencies. A NZ-owned company is “A business that originated in New Zealand, is more than 50% owned, controlled or operated (directly or indirectly) by New Zealanders (citizens or residents), that has employees who live in New Zealand, and has its principal place of business in New Zealand.”

Of the total of 113 of the RFPs:.

• 52 RFPS were awarded to NZ owned companies
• 6 RFPs were awarded to panels
• 55 RFPs were awarded to non-NZ owned companies

GETS provides a facility for agencies to enter the value of the contract, however less than 10% of the notices provided this in the award amount field, with a total value of $4,072,170.  Eleven awards included information on the award amount in the comments field (total $6,225,660) and a further five provided a range of contract value. The table below shows the details of the awarded amounts by type of contract and ownership.

Conclusions

It is encouraging that MBIE are committed to publishing this data on a quarterly basis, and the emphasis now needs to move to improving data quality.  Specific actions for government agencies include:

• Record all contracts awarded in the Award Type field 
• Record the supplier in the correct field, and not just in the Comments field
• Enter the value of the contract in the Awarded Amount field

These short-term changes are important to enable better quality data and support more useful analysis.  

NZRise recommend that the following longer term improvements are included in the future roadmap for government procurement:

• Ensure all government procurement is reported in GETS; in particular all awards under whole of government contracts
• Include NZBN business number for all suppliers to improve data quality
• Adopt Open Contracting data Standards, as introduced in Australia
• Move towards publication of actual contracts signed by government, as is done in some countries that lead in open government procurement

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this.  Please drop [email protected] a line.