A group of experts from the OECD and the European Commission carried out a project to review and propose systemic changes to public procurement for more efficient public procurement. A group of experts dealing with structural changes in public policies reviewed the field of public procurement for the first time in the case of Slovenia.

In 2019, the group visited missions in Ljubljana several times and conducted interviews with various stakeholders and interactive workshops. Together with colleagues from the Ministry of Public Administration, they co-created solutions that will improve the public procurement system in Slovenia.

Today, the OECD issued the final document »System Change in Slovenia – Making Public Procurement More Effective«, which will help in the future in creating new and different solutions for a better public procurement system and in creating innovative approaches and solutions. The document is available at OECD website.

The OECD report includes a historical overview, legal foundations, systems analysis and recommendations as possible scenarios for the development of the public procurement system. The OECD notes that Slovenia's public procurement system has a strong legal basis, and that efforts in the past have been mainly focused on regulatory changes and related to solutions for greater transparency and the reduction of corruption.

As a result, Slovenia has become one of the most transparent OECD countries, making the most information on the public procurement process publicly available. In addition, the OECD also acknowledges Slovenia for its efforts to develop an innovative public procurement system and to follow international standards through its practices, developing guidelines for public procurement staff and ensuring the exchange of good practices throughout the system.

Despite all the activities, the OECD believes that there are still quite formalized procedures (or at least such is the perception), which do not provide opportunities and space to experiment and encourage the use of new and innovative, agile methods.

Among other things, the OECD report presents several new ideas to help the Slovenian public procurement system, such as developing a community for knowledge exchange, building trust between participants in procurement procedures, building trust with the general public, managing risks and creating space for testing new methods.

The OECD report is a tool that will be used by the Ministry of Public Administration in the future as an important document for further reforms, development and changes in the public procurement system.