PITS is working on a note with a short set of best practices (and bad practices) containing examples from several countries:

• Canada: Quebec, province and city in Canada
• France
• Italy: Region of Piedmont
• UK

In the Canadian case there is actually case law with a Supreme court decision on procurement, including a set of impact studies on the economy.

• Gaps in guidance
• Gaps in practices
• Gaps in existing policy and legislation
• Understanding the impact of ongoing policy or legislative developments

PITS will try to progress on the following:

IT standards legislation

Guidance and understanding of Commission’s Decision on IT Standards (CD 97/95) is essential.  PITS wll aim to assess cases where exceptions are applicable (such as for interoperability, innovation, or when existing standards are judged as technically inadequate), and will provide technical guidance.  For example, we so far do not know of any tender that has been annulled for referencing an OASIS, W3C or IEEE standard, despite the fact that they are not necessarily allowed to be referenced unless there are exceptional circumstances.  Also, there is little or no EU-level case law, apart from the Intel case (which was not in software). Also, it is a bit unclear how these exception should work.

Interoperable e-procurement

Guidance on e-procurement practices and the need for interoperable e-procurement tools is also important.  We know of cases where tenderers have to submit bids using platform that are non-interoperable.  Regarding this topic, we will also refer to the ePractice e-procurement community.

Public procurement legislation

Ensure compliance with current legal framework on public procurement and on ongoing modernisation initiatives.

Emerging IT standards legislation

Ensure compliance with ongoing modernisation initiatives.

Related Articles

• EU to Get Feedback on Its Public Procurement Policy (pcworld.com)
• Government Procurement Should Exclude Patents-riddled ‘Standards’ (techrights.org)
• UK Gov’t Says Open Standards Must Be Royalty Free (yro.slashdot.org)
• Procurement Market System (essaysuk.wordpress.com)

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The Digital Agenda Stakeholder Community on Procurement, IT & Standards (PITS) just launched its public website, with guidance and resources on how to improve IT procurement through making the best use of open standards.

PITS spokesperson, Trond Arne Undheim, said:

“With the PITS community, we aim to bring together knowledge from a variety of stakeholders across the IT procurement chain”.

Three main contributions are underway:

• A note on the major challenges.
• An overview of good and bad practices.
• Shared resources and links to ongoing initiatives.

PITS aims to be key contributors to Digital Agenda’ s Action 23, which is about European guidance on ICT standardisation and public procurement.

PITS is backed by individuals as well as the oraganizations APRIL, ECIS, ESOP, FSFE, OASIS,Openforum Europe and W3C, and with several governments as observers. There is still with room for others to join the community.

PITS will present its findings at the EU’s Digital Agenda Assembly on 16-17 June 2011.

Related Articles

• European Commission consults on procurement law overhaul (go.theregister.com)
• Procurement Market System (essaysuk.wordpress.com)