This report was prepared by the OECD Public Governance Directorate (GOV) under the leadership of Elsa Pilichowski, Director, and the guidance of Edwin Lau, Head of GOV’s Infrastructure and Public Procurement Division. It was co-ordinated and authored by Erika Bozzay, Senior Policy Adviser at the Infrastructure and Public Procurement Division. The report benefited from valuable insights and comments from Paulo Magina and Matthieu Cahen from the same division. Tessa Cullen, at the time policy analyst on secondment from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, New Zealand drafted the first version of the sub-chapter 2.4. Overall public spending through public procurement. Miroslava Packova, local consultant working for the OECD, also contributed to the report. Valuable comments were received from Benjamin Welby and Felipe González-Zapate from the Open and Innovative Government Division at OECD. Editorial assistance was provided by Lauren Thwaites. This report was prepared for publication by Thibaut Gigou.
The OECD expresses its gratitude to the European Commission for their support to this project, particularly Daniele Dotto, Deputy Director and Head of Unit, Governance and Public Administration and Alessandra Budello, policy officer at DG Reform, European Commission.
The OECD and the European Commission are particularly thankful to the Slovak Government for their commitment to this work and wish to express their gratitude to all those who made this report possible, especially the representatives of the Public Procurement Office in Slovakia. Throughout the process, they have shown great dedication and commitment, including mobilising all relevant stakeholders. During the fact-finding missions, the OECD conducted in-depth interviews with a wide range of stakeholders in the Republic of Slovakia, including non-governmental actors. These interviews were instrumental in further improving the OECD’s understanding of the Slovak context and helping to recommend courses of action that reflect the national and sectoral priorities. The authors would like to thank all stakeholders at the regional and national level of government, who shared their views and experience during subsequent OECD missions, especially to the representatives of the Public Procurement Office (PPO), the Deputy Prime Minister’s Office, the Ministry of Finance, Information Technology Association Slovakia (ITAS), Slovensko Digital, Office of the Mayor of the City of Bratislava, Slovanet, DEUS (DataCentrum elektronizácie územnej samosprávy), the Ministry of Interior, the Anti-Monopoly Office, and Stop Corruption Slovakia.
Furthermore, the OECD also expresses its gratitude to Warren Smith, at the time Deputy Director, Government Digital Service International, Global Digital Marketplace Programme Director, United Kingdom and Felix Zimmerman, Head of the Central Office for IT Procurement, Federal Ministry of Interior, Building and Community (ZIB), Germany for collaborating with the OECD as peers and providing invaluable insights during the fact-finding missions and the drafting process.
Delegates from the Working Party of Leading Practitioners on Public Procurement were invited to review the document.