State Procurement Policy

The purpose of the enactment of the new Public Procurement Law is to facilitate the implementation of the State Procurement Policy as the existing Law has not provided such regulations. Provisions addressing the State Procurement Policy are contained in Chapter 3 of the new Public Procurement Law.

The State Procurement Policy is to define the public procurement priorities for the Republic of Poland and set the direction for contracting authorities in their contracting activities. The focus of the legislation is to make procurement oriented to innovative and sustainable products and services which are to be supplied to public institutions. This mainly involves the implementation of a procurement management framework for public contracts that would embrace the aspects of standardisation; cost calculation throughout the product life cycle; social responsibility of business; and promotion of procurement best practices and tools.

The State Procurement Policy will be developed every 4 years by the Minister competent for economy, who will then coordinate its implementation. Intended to provide a roadmap for the government administration, the Procurement Policy will also include the objectives and directions for growth.

The implementation of the State Procurement Policy has led to an additional requirement being imposed on those contracting authorities which are central government administration bodies. Pursuant to Article 22 of the new Public Procurement Law, those entities are required to create a management strategy for individual procurement categories aligned with the State Procurement Policy. The strategy will identify key contracts instrumental to delivering on the State Procurement Policy.

Contracting authorities will also be obliged to prepare a plan of contract award procedures intended to be conducted in the financial year. The above obligation was one of the obligations imposed on contracting authorities under the existing Public Procurement Law and has been transferred to the new Public Procurement Law. However, the current regulations provide for the contract award procedure plan to be published on a contracting authority’s website only and the amendment requires that such plans be also published in the Public Procurement Bulletin (BZP).

As a result, the above changes do not apply directly to contractors although they may have informative value for contractors; by keeping track of procurement strategies contractors will get a better understanding of the market for upcoming contracts and prepare for bidding.