Barometer innovative public procurement in Belgium

Abstract

Rethinking the way that government organizations purchase goods and services is a vital step in dealing with the present-day challenges faced by the public sector. The post-2008 austerity measures force government organizations to reduce waste in public expenditure in order to allocate the shrinking budgets as efficiently as possible. Public procurement, representing an important share of public expenditure, can be a key element in realizing these efficiency goals. Additionally, the demand of public organizations may influence the development and diffusion of innovations. In this sense, public procurement, if used wisely, can add fuel to the ‘innovation engine’, thereby allowing the public sector to support the private sector without the use of traditional state aid. This “Barometer Innovative Procurement in Belgium” aims to serve a dual purpose: (1) To untangle the broad term ‘innovative procurement’ and shed light on the various interpretations that different actors give to it. To this end, we discuss the Procurement Matrix which describes public procurement along two dimensions. This framework is intended to summarize the different interpretations into one 2x3 matrix. By untangling the term, we hope that confusion can be avoided in future discussions, and in that way contribute to fruitful cross-organizational cooperations. (2) To provide an overview of various initiatives in Belgium that are focusing on the topic of innovative procurement. While it is refreshing to see that many actors take an interest in innovative procurement, it is important to keep a clear view on who is doing what, the triggers to change, and the challenges going forward. To this end, we provide a brief description of the primary initiatives in Belgium. We hope this contributes to pinpointing potential opportunities to learn from one another. It is important to note that this barometer does not aim to be an exhaustive overview of innovative procurement initiatives in Belgium. Rather, by talking to a wide array of actors, we have tried to identify the key initiatives. During these interviews, no other substantial initiatives were named, leading us to believe that many of the other Belgian stakeholders stick to the traditional way-of procuring. The barometer is the result of semi-structured interviews with various stakeholders in Belgium (federal, regional, and local level), a round table conference organized on 20/04/2017, policy reports, and academic literature.