Awarding for 17 billion, of which 8.6 relating to Pnrr tenders. It is the most significant number of Consip’s 2022 financial statements, the one that explains well how the Pnrr was at the same time the driving force of an exceptional year in terms of results and the exam largely passed in response to the stress that the Recovery and Resilience Plan it entails for a central purchasing body on the front line. Here too the numbers sum up: 35 Pnrr tenders awarded compared to the 21 foreseen by the targets. If instead we take the Consip activity as a whole, the lots awarded were 320, the controlled operators (as lot winners) 1,200 above the EU thresholds and 300 below the EU thresholds. 22.5 billion were disbursed on Consip instruments: sums that obviously ended up with the contractors.
Consip: +212% of tenders awarded in 2022 compared to 2006
Pnrr and more, then. The company led by Cristiano Cannarsa had made a profound reorganization precisely to be prepared for the Pnrr. The Plan was the accelerator of a project and a trend that has been underway since 2017, when Cannarsa arrived in the company. Just look at the comparison of the numbers 2022 with those of 2016 to understand what work has been done, with the same human resources (439 then, 436 today). The 17 billion tenders awarded must be compared with 5,450 million in 2016 (+212%). The value of the calls for tenders increased from 5 to 16.46 billion (+229%). The disbursement of 22.5 billion should be compared with the 8,206 million in 2016. Core business revenues went from 56.7 million to just under 80 this year, the profit from 789 thousand euros to over 6.7 million , investments from 935 thousand euros to 4.5 million.
Increasing digitization
Among the innovations that have led to an increasingly rapid digitization are the digital auction and the launch on the Mepa (Electronic Public Administration Market) of the job product category in 2020, the initiatives for national cybersecurity and the «Recovery Procurement Platform» project for the Pnrr in 2021, the release of the new E-Proc platform (with 13,500 Pa, over 130 thousand authorized suppliers, over 700 thousand annual transactions) and the “pre-compiled” of companies with the qualification on the E-Proc platform in 2022.
Conventions and framework agreements
There are two areas of activity that are radically changing the national procurement market. The first sees Consip in the role of aggregator with “ready-to-use” contracts through conventions, framework agreements and framework contracts, standardized product categories for purchases by the Public Administration, online orders or with the negotiation of specific contracts: this leads to 500 active lots for an average “shelf” from which the Public Administrations can quickly take 13.8 billion.
Market maker to expand the electronic markets
The second role of Consip is instead of market maker with new tools created to expand the electronic markets: the e-procurement platforms for autonomous purchases made by public administrations (Mepa, Sdapa, Asp tenders) or catalog purchases and/or negotiation with comparison between different suppliers. 100,000 businesses participate in these electronic markets, 97% of which are SMEs, with 11 million “items on display”.