24 March 2015
As of 18 October 2014, the price may be used as the sole public contract evaluation criterion only if the subject matter of the contract is generally available and has established quality standards. The Public Procurement Office has published the first statistical data (as at the end of 2014) about the criteria used for tender selection.
The statistics are very interesting, especially compared to the situation prior to the amendment, where over 90% of all public contracts were contracts with the price as the sole evaluation criterion.
Table 1 Public contracts prior to and after the amendment
Source: the Public Procurement Office
For the application of non-price criteria, the statistics are as follows:
Table 2: Non-price criteria
Source: the Public Procurement Office
Are the above changes in the application of the price criterion due to a radical adjustment of the attitude towards public contracts and the development of consistent purchasing strategies or rather due to compliance with the Act that requires application of such other criteria?
To answer this question I will again refer to the statistical data. In the case of procedures in which the price was not the sole evaluation criteria, in over 92% of notices the contracting authorities adopted two tender evaluation criteria and used 2.11 criteria on average.
Personally, I think that it is too early to draw optimistic conclusions. For now, I will leave you with an open question: is it possible to ensure a relevant quality of suppliers applying only one non-price criterion?
