Active advocacy work nationally and at the EU level
Hansel promotes the efficiency and fluency of public procurement by influencing regulation in Finland and the whole of EU. In 2018, Hansel provided a total of eleven opinions to different ministries and actively participated in projects prepared by the EU Commission.
A major piece of advocacy work during 2018 was linked to the amendment of the Act on a Limited Liability Company Called Hansel Oy. Hansel strongly participated in the preparation of the law, and a Hansel expert was heard by Parliament’s Commerce Committee. To enable the merger of Hansel and KL-Kuntahankinnat, the act was amended so that Hansel Ltd’s shareholders can also include parties other than the state. Meanwhile, the company’s clientele was expanded so that in addition to the current government agency customers, municipalities, joint municipal authorities, the Evangelical-Lutheran church, the Orthodox church and Keva, among others, can be Hansel’s customers.
In 2018, Hansel actively supported a working group of the European Commission tasked with reforming the Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV). Hansel collected improvement suggestions and opinions from Finnish procurement organisations on the use of the CPV and forwarded them to the Commission.
Hansel also participated in a consultation of the Commission on public procurement announcements. The plan is to reform the process of announcing public procurement in 2022–2023. The goal is to facilitate the announcement process and reduce the administrative burden it causes.
Opinions issued in 2018:
- National Audit Office of Finland: an opinion on a draft audit report on centralised ICT services
- Ministry of Finance: an opinion on a draft government proposal on amending the laws on the Finnish Government Shared Services Centre for Finance and HR and the State Treasury
- Ministry of Finance: an opinion on a draft government proposal on an act on electronic invoicing (Hansel was also heard by Parliament in January 2019)
- Ministry of the Environment: an opinion on a bill to amend the Waste Act
- Ministry of Finance: an opinion on policies regarding the location and management of information in public administration
- Ministry of Finance: an opinion on data communications service policies in public administration
- Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment: an opinion to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment regarding a request for comment on joint procurement units from the Parliamentary Ombudsman
- Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland: an opinion on a draft report by EU Parliament on a regulation regarding the reciprocity of public procurement
- Ministry of Transport and Communications: an opinion on a draft government proposal on an act to amend the Highways Act and other Acts
- Ministry of Transport and Communications: an opinion on a draft government proposal on an amendment of the Act on Electronic Communication Services (laki sähköisen viestinnän palveluista, 917/2014) and the Act on Security of Public Administration Networks (laki julkisen hallinnon turvallisuusverkkotoiminnasta, 10/2015)
- Ministry of Finance: an opinion on a draft government proposal on an Act on data management in public administration and related Acts