DIGITALISATION OF LOCAL PUBLIC SERVICES FOR THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT IN ROMANIA. THE PARTICULAR CASE OF THE PUBLIC PROCUREMENT PROCESS

Abstract

The way in which public procurement is carried out affects the whole economy and, indirectly, the quality of people’s live, as a result of public servcies, goods and works acquired. Free competition between tendering economic agents, equity and fairness of procurement tenders must to be guaranteed within the framework of digitalized business-oriented public services. These have to stimulate the development of the business environment by offering contract for supply of public goods, services and works in a framework of transparent, objective and fair competition. Digitalisation of public services offers an advantage in this respect. This present paper proposes an unitary architectural model of the public procurement process within local administrations, one that could serve as a basis for the design of adequate computer software aimed at providing digital formatting to this entire process. The model is unitary within each Romanian local public administration and is also applicable to any of its structures (city councils, regional councils or their subordinated public institutions, other entities financed from public funds) and has been drafted in compliance with the applicable public procurement legislation. Proposing this model is justified not only because it provides a unitary public procurement digitalization process of the contracting authority which, at the moment relies solely on the use of the SICAP national platform, but also because its implementation guarantees the compliance with the principles of free competition between tendering economic agents as well as impartiality and fairness during the tender selection process. Digitalisation provides this advantage to both the public and private sectors, enabling their interaction, an advantage that needs to be properly exploited to generate digitalised services with added value, customized for the business environment, the added value consisting in actually ensuring these principles.