Public procurement requirements should be open to all qualified organizations and individuals. The public should also have access to information pertaining to public procurement requirements. Access to public procurement information is not absolute. Confidential and proprietary information belonging to organizations and individuals participating in process should not be available publicly, and the extent of their disclosure should be detailed in the procurement rules or other relevant regulation.
There are also procurement methods, such as restricted or selective bidding, that limit the availability of solicitation documents to only those firms meeting certain qualifications. The request for quotations (or shopping), and direct contracting (sole source) also present certain limitations on competition given that the request for offers is limited to a certain number and type of organizations or individuals.
The evaluation of offers received is always kept confidential until the evaluation panel reaches a final conclusion and after the evaluation report is cleared by a designated approving authority. This would be defined in the procurement rules.
Most defense procurements are confidential, restricting relevant information to a “need-to-know” basis only.
Except for confidential defense procurements, the results of the public procurement process should be published and made available on relevant websites. In addition, public procurement information (except for confidential/proprietary information) should be open to all on a restricted access basis.
