Procurement reporting for calendar year 2016 (to be reported in 2017)

Contracting Policy Notice: 2017-2

Date: March 15, 2017

To: Functional heads of Finance and Administration in all departments and agencies

Subject: Procurement reporting for calendar year 2016 (to be reported in 2017)

Summary

Each year, organizations are asked to provide data on their contracting activities to Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC). PSPC supplies the data to the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS), along with PSPC and Shared Services Canada (SSC) data on the contracting that they undertake on behalf of organizations.

This data is used to meet a number of the government’s reporting obligations, including its obligations under various international and domestic trade agreements.

Reporting entities

All contracting authorities as defined in the Government Contracts Regulations must report their procurement data.

Authorization and deadline

Please note that due to the importance of reporting obligations, all organizations are accountable for the accuracy and comprehensiveness of their contracting data, as this data will be publicly posted. Public procurement data promotes transparency in federal government contracting, and is a key source of information that is of interest to a broad audience, including federal organizations, oversight bodies, Canadians, media, and other governments.

When sending data to PSPC, the electronic transmittal document must indicate the name and position of the individual (Director General level or higher) who has reviewed, validated and approved the data for release on behalf of the organization. Otherwise, the data will be returned to the originator.

Organizations are required to submit their data to PSPC no later than May 31, 2017.

Reporting for 2016

Organizations are to report all contracts and amendments undertaken under their authority using the mandatory fields listed in the Appendix. PSPC Acquisitions Branch and SSC Procurement and Vendor Relations will include all contracting they have undertaken on behalf of organizations.

Do not report acquisition card transactions. This information will be obtained from sources within PSPC.

Do not report any contract or amendment that has a $0 value. 

For standing offers, organizations are to report individual call-ups rather than entire standing offer agreements, regardless of whether the standing offers were put in place by the organizations themselves or by PSPC or SSC.

Please note that for future years, starting with calendar year 2017, organizations will be required to publish their contracting activities on the new Open Government Portal. The new process will merge the data elements of the Purchasing Activity Report (PAR) with those of the Proactive Disclosure of Contracts.

Organizations that have been disclosing data on contracts entered into since January 1st 2016 using the new publishing system are not required to submit data through the existing reporting process for calendar year 2016.

Data submission

Please send electronic data by email to ncr.gwprs@pwgsc.gc.ca and copy par-rsa@tbs-sct.gc.ca.

Enquiries

All enquiries regarding the published data will be referred to officials in the applicable organization.

For procurement data reporting enquiries, please contact Michel El-Hajj (PSPC) at 873-469-3375.

For information on all other matters, please contact Anca Radulescu (TBS) at 613-369-9371.

Kathleen Owens
Assistant Comptroller General
Acquired Services and Assets Sector
Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat

Appendix

Any incomplete or inaccurate data will be returned to the organization that submitted the data, for correction.

As part of their reports, organizations must provide information for the following 17 data elements, along with the appropriate coding.