Not all contracts are showing up on ContractsFinder

Last week Ian Makgill from OpenOpps and SpendNetwork published this stat:

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It's a big number, but one we should not be surprised to see. First, according Regulation 109 PCR2015 below the EU financial thresholds the obligation covers Central Government (from £10,000 upwards), NHS and sub-central contracting authorities (from £25,000 upwards) but not those from authorities based in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.

Nonetheless this is another example of poor legislative drafting, one that does not take into account neither incentives nor the usual way contracting authorities operate. Assuming the legislative change was introduced because not enough contracts were being advertised, the status quo ante is contracting authorities do not see an advantage in advertising. As such, specific incentives need to be provided to get contracting authorities to change their practice.

Those incentives tend to be of the "stick" kind, ie negative consequences for non-compliance. But in a country with limited use of judicial review mechanisms and where secrecy of contracts awarded is the norm and not the exception the risks of being found out are quite limited. I am not arguing for the courts to be stuck with low value procurement challenges (ahem, I'm looking at you Portugal) but without clear consequences and enforcement mechanisms practice will not change.

This is, after all, the country where it is apparently acceptable for a contracting authority in large scale projects to take shortcuts with its record keeping, so who cares with what is happening in low value contracts?