Seminar "Problems of Information Support of the Contract System"

The International Laboratory of Digital Transformation in Public Administration jointly with Alexander T. Shamrin (Vice President of the HSE University) and Konstantin Golovshchinsky (Deputy Director of IGMU) held an online seminar "Problems of Information Support of the Contract System".

Public procurement under FZ-44 is a complex and unique system; there are no complete analogues of such procurement legislation in the world. Information support of the contract system through the Unified Procurement Information System (UPIS). In recent years, the stability and operability of the system has been significantly improved, however, like any developing system, it is not without drawbacks. Also, the Federal Treasury, as the holder of the UPIS, is trying to modernize the information system, but it remains debatable how successfully improvements are being implemented in the UPIS and whether the vector of the proposed improvements is correctly determined

Experts from Vologda, Kaluga and Samara regions were invited to the seminar. As part of the discussion of the challenges facing the contract system today, in particular the UPIS, the issue of the Catalog of Goods, Works and Services was raised. Evgeny Gorokhovsky, representing the Vologda Region Contract System Regulation Committee, noted the absence of serious problems with the use of the Catalog of Goods, Works and Services within the information system, but noted shortcomings in filling the catalog, in particular, related to medical equipment. This remark was also supported by representatives of the Ministry of Competition Policy of the Kaluga Region. Experts from the Samara region drew attention to the randomness of updating the catalog in the UPIS, which are not additionally warned about, and because of which the planned joint purchases of regional customers may be disrupted. It was suggested to set a specific date for catalog updates within a month. The moderator of the seminar, Alexander T. Shamrin, spoke about the proposals of the Higher School of Economics on the need to switch from a closed to an open architecture for filling the catalog.

The next issue discussed during the seminar was the question of a fairly new tool of the UPIS "Electronic registration". Experts noted that within the framework of existing regional digital solutions, mechanisms similar to electronic activation are already being implemented. Analytical tools within the framework of regional procurement systems are still being used more actively than analogues from the Unified Information System. Representatives from the Kaluga Region noted problems with downloading information from the UPIS, but there have been fewer errors in obtaining data over the past few years. Proposals were made to intensify efforts to integrate various information systems with the UPIS.

When discussing the issue of continuity and continuity of the Unified Information System, the invited experts noted difficulties in working in the system at the time of updates of the UPIS, and periods of increased load (end of December) – because of which it was not possible to start a purchase in the information system. An opinion was also expressed about the improved situation with the continuity of the UPIS, compared with the winters of 2014 and 2016.

In the final part of the seminar, regional representatives made their recommendations on improving the Unified Information System. Experts from the Vologda Oblast proposed to strengthen the integration of the Electronic Budget and the UPIS, from the Kaluga Region there were proposals to unify the data collected from participants to eliminate situations with the need for duplication of data in different elements of the information system, as well as to reduce manual work within the UPIS, for example, automatic verification of participants' applications. Samara representatives supported the recommendation of colleagues on the need for deeper integration of other information systems with the UPIS.