Events in the Public Market Council

The Public Market Council's last meeting in May, at our premises in Stockholm, was attended by Lena Helden from Teknikföretagen and Ellen Hausel Heldahl from the collaborative project "Better Public Market".

The Public Market Council brings together our member companies that want to pursue issues related to the public market, and is chaired by Mikael von Otter.

^{The Public Market Council aims to coordinate all issues related to the public market.}

During the last meeting, a new member, from member company Software Innovation Sweden, was welcomed to the Council.

Lena Helden, Teknikföretagen, was invited to the meeting to talk about Teknikföretagen's experiences from the project 'Early Dialogue'. The project means that contracting authorities meet potential suppliers, industry organizations, experts and other actors before the requirements are designed for the upcoming procurement, in order to increase knowledge about the solutions the companies / the market can offer. The project has, among other things, taken advantage of experiences from Norway, where efforts are being made to improve interaction between authorities and suppliers. The project is a collaboration between the business community, SALAR and the Swedish Competition Authority's procurement support unit. From this fall, the latter will become a separate authority, with the task of providing support not only to the public sector but also to the business community.

Ellen Hausel Heldahl from the collaborative project "Better Public Markets" was also invited to the meeting. The project, which is run by the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, the Transport Group, Almega, the Swedish Construction Federation, the Swedish Industry Federation and the Swedish Trade Federation, is working hard to highlight good examples where, for example, authorities have managed the procurement process well by using new solutions and innovations. There is room for improvement here, according to the latest survey on the business community's view of Sweden's municipalities. The project also notes that competence in this area is comparatively low in Sweden - with only one lawyer having a doctorate in public procurement, and few academic degrees.

Both Lena Helden and Ellen Hausel Heldal's presentations generated a lot of discussion in the Council. In particular, the problem of the overly detailed requirements that municipalities and authorities often impose in procurement procedures was discussed.

The meeting also received fresh information on the new LOU (Law on Public Procurement), which will come into force in April 2016 and contains several innovations of interest to the IT industry.

The Council also discussed so-called "one-crown tenders" for consultants, as well as issues relating to review, and decided to propose to the Board of the IT&Telecom Companies to supplement the Association's Basic Principles of Business Ethics in this regard.

Finally, Mikael von Otter reported on the ongoing talks with the Swedish Public Procurement Association (SOI), which aim to organize a dialogue meeting, where each party's experiences (good and bad) of public procurement are discussed in an informal spirit, to provide feedback on how the procurement process can be improved for all parties. This dialogue meeting is planned for the end of August, and will be reported back at the next Council meeting scheduled (tentatively) for September 15.