Procurement clinics in public procurement and urban development

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present the concept of ‘procurement clinics’, which have been used in complex property and urban development-related procurement processes in Finland, and to evaluate the benefits of the aforementioned concept. Procurement clinics are a systematised form of market dialogue under the Act of Public Procurement, which derives from the EU procurement directive. As a major finding, the paper presents a successful way to improve property and urban development-related procurement processes, especially when using competitive dialogue. As a by-product, the paper also presents methods of implementing a procurement clinic. The study was conducted in Finland only, which poses some limitations when applying the findings elsewhere. However, in EU countries the public procurement processes follow the aforementioned directive and should be rather similar. Practical implications of the study consist of improving procurement and urban development processes. These improvements are better private sector participation in procurement, shorter procurement processes and changes in the formatting of procurement.