Mythbusting Confidentiality in Public Contracting

One in every three dollars that a government spends is on a contract with a company to deliver goods, works, and services to citizens.

There is growing evidence that transparency and openness around this spending can help improve the competitiveness, integrity and efficiency of the contracting process. This disclosure is not simply “transparency for transparency’s sake” but contains useable, actionable information that government itself would benefit from and that business and civic actors can also use if open channels for feedback exist.

Not everyone agrees. Concern around the confidentiality of information in the contracts themselves is arguably one of the greatest barriers to more openness. Apprehension over what is and is not confidential creates inertia. It hinders experimentation in how best to engage business and civil society in the contracting process and how to share information about the process in more user-friendly and accessible ways.

This report seeks to unpack and, where possible, unpick those concerns.