Identification of Indicators and Digital Tools to Enhance Civic Monitoring in Public Procurement

The paper proposes useful indicators and tools to improve the civic monitoring of public procurement implemented through digital procedures in the construction sector. Despite the construction industry is a key pillar of the global economy, the protection and integrity of public procurement are often exposed to various challenges. To revolutionize the monitoring of public procurement, national and transnational regulations have been issued to supervise the adoption of digital technologies and tools to ensure operations transparency and continuous monitoring of the progress. The presented definition of useful indicators to promote civic monitoring is based on a replicable methodology that starts from the analysis of the state of the art and best practices in the European and Italian context, including the last provisions about digitalization in public procurement. The indicators were created through multiple revisions in agreement with civic monitoring experts to ensure transparency and data continuous accessibility by common citizens. Although the presented indicators are still theoretical, were designed to reduce long execution times and public funding waste, in addition to ensure greater compliance with expected project performance and quality. The indicators will be validated through future pilot case studies and included in the civic monitoring purposes of the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan projects. The outcomes of the validation will support the definition of a civic monitoring approach that could be replicated in other international contexts.

The paper presents a set of indicators exploitable by non-experts for civic monitoring of public procurement. It focuses on the construction sector, a key pillar of the global economy, which is most affected by several critical issues such as corruption. The monitoring of public procurement is key to ensure the efficient use of public resources and is facilitated by the digitalization of information and procurement procedures, which enable or make it easier for citizens to access, consult, and process data on public procurement. Thus, the indicators were identified with particular attention to digitalizing procedures in all stages of public procurement, aiming at guaranteeing data transparency and accessibility, as well as the shared management and traceability of information. They have been identified in the Italian context, but can be replicated in other ones, including international ones, with critical issues requiring indicators to monitor the correct, efficient, and transparent execution of public procurements. They will be used to monitor projects funded by the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan (adopted in 2021 as part of the Next Generation EU).