Other reports

• Office of the Procurement Ombud’s 2026-28 Accessibility Plan New
• Office of the Procurement Ombud’s 2024 Accessibility Plan and Progress Update
• Summary of the Findings of OPO’s Planned Procurement Practice Reviews conducted between 2018 and 2023

  Executive summary

  Context and Background

  The Office of the Procurement Ombud (OPO) published a report summarizing the results of its procurement practice reviews (PPR) conducted between 2018 and 2023. Through these PPRs, OPO gained valuable insights into areas needing improvement while also identifying best practices that could emulated by other departments.

  OPO reviewed 631 files for competitively awarded contracts in 17 federal departments to assess procurement practices related to evaluation criteria and selection plans, solicitation processes, and evaluation of bids and contract award.

  These reviews assessed how well federal departments’ contracting practices upheld the principles of fairness, openness and transparency and, how well they complied with laws and regulations.

  Results

  Areas of improvement

  Consistently reviewing multiple departments against the same lines of enquiry revealed systemic issues in federal procurement, including:

  • shortcomings in evaluation criteria: mandatory criteria and selection methodologies that were not clearly communicated in solicitations, overly restrictive criteria that appeared to favor particular bidders and evaluation criteria that did not align with the operational requirements;
  • insufficient, incomplete or inaccurate information in solicitations; and
  • evaluation processes that were not carried out in accordance with the planned approach;
  • contracts awarded to non-responsive bidders or to the incorrect responsive bidder OPO’s reviews also highlighted deficient documentation practices and the persistent complexity of procurement processes which often deters suppliers from bidding.
  • OPO’s reviews also highlighted deficient documentation practices across multiple departments, and the persistent complexity of the procurement processes which often deters suppliers from bidding.

  These issues jeopardize the fairness of federal procurement and the Government of Canada’s commitment to open and transparent government.

  Good practices

  OPO observed some good simplification practices across several departments including:

  • standardisation of procurement documents to streamline procurement processes
  • limiting the number of technical evaluation criteria
  • use of contract options
  • simplifying the approach to seeking references

  However, there is still room for improvement in ensuring these practices are consistently applied across all departments.

  Recommendations and next steps

  The Ombud issued 92 recommendations to the 17 departments reviewed to address the issues identified, all of which were accepted.

  OPO is performing Follow-up Reviews to assess departmental actions taken to improve procurement practices in response to the Ombud’s recommendations.

  OPO is also undergoing a consultation process with federal buyers and procurement experts to identify the top five foundational changes that are needed in federal procurement.

  Report

  Read the full report: Summary of the Findings of OPO’s Planned Procurement Practice Reviews conducted between 2018 and 2023.

• Office of the Procurement Ombud’s 2023 Accessibility Plan and Progress Update
• Office of the Procurement Ombudsman's 2022-23 Accessibility Plan
• Procurement Practice Review Plan 2018 to 2023
• Review of Regulatory Functions and Compliance with the Department of Public Works and the Government Services Act and the Procurement Ombudsman Regulations