Event Recap: Reconceptualizing Public Procurement to Strengthen State Benefits Delivery and Improve Outcomes

New America’s Digital Impact and Governance Initiative (DIGI) and the Open Contracting Partnership (OCP) co-hosted a two-part panel discussion on October 19 with experts and practitioners from the fields of tech and procurement. Together, we discussed challenges and opportunities for improving state safety net benefits delivery through digital solutions procurement.

The event kicked off with an introduction from DIGI’s Senior Advisor Allison Price, who announced the launch of the accompanying report, Reconceptualizing Public Procurement to Strengthen State Benefits Delivery and Improve Outcomes, which looks at how digital systems that are procured by states have a direct impact on government services and the millions of people eligible for safety net benefits. The report offers recommendations from experts to improve benefit outcomes through public procurement reform, organized under five core action areas. Many of the report contributors spoke at the event to share recommendations from their essays and larger thoughts on the public procurement space.

Marina Nitze, a Fellow with New America’s New Practice Lab, author of Hack Your Bureaucracy, and former Chief Technology Officer of the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, moderated the event. Participants in the first panel included Bruce Haupt, Director with the Public Sector & Education Practice of Alvarez & Marsal and former Director for Performance Improvement and Innovation for the City of Houston; Afua Bruce, author of The Tech That Comes Next; Kathrin Frauscher, Executive Director at the Open Contracting Partnership; and Jennifer Wagner, Director of Medicaid Eligibility & Enrollment at Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Panelists offered their perspectives on how to transform the greater public procurement field and the broad culture shifts needed to better assist the millions of people relying on government digital solutions for access to benefits and services. Key takeaways from the first panel include:

• Put outcomes and people at the center of every step of the procurement process. Rather than using broad, vague goals like modernization, public procurement teams should clearly identify the problem they are trying to procure a digital solution for, and create a clear vision for how that solution can best benefit those who will use the tool.
• Engage various stakeholders, both internally and externally, throughout the procurement process to generate innovative and inclusive solutions. Consulting with staff, vendors, partners, and community members with different expertise and backgrounds, from start to finish, creates a greater opportunity for equity within both the procurement process and the impact of the digital solution procured.
• Invest in and build on existing procurement processes and talent. Procurement is often an overlooked process. Major improvements in outcomes can be made simply by assessing and improving upon existing processes and creating capacity-building, training, cross-team engagement opportunities for staff. Supporting and empowering those already engaging in the procurement process should be leadership’s first step toward public procurement transformation.
• Challenge the status quo. Relying on legacy vendors and off-the-shelf digital products does not always lead to the best results or practices. Procured digital solutions and processes should be adapted to meet unique community needs. This often requires working with local vendors, making sure that each piece of a system is streamlined for both users and administrators, and incorporating flexibility into a system by using agile or iterative processes.
• Collaboration is critical to improving public procurement outcomes. Procurement often happens in silos, with each topic and team separated – data, logistics, policy, technology, and talent. To create systemic change, leadership should be intentional about bringing each of these aspects together to create a comprehensive view of both the challenge and potential solutions. One simple way to do this is to include procurement teams and specialists at each step – from drafting the request for proposal to digital solution implementation.

The second panel featured Christen Lara, Behavioral Health Administration's Health Information Technology Director at Colorado’s Department of Human Services; Coreata R. Houser, Deputy Director for the Department of Innovation and Economic Opportunity for the City of Birmingham; and Ayushi Roy, Deputy Director of New America's New Practice Lab and former Director of State and Local Technology at 18F. Panelists offered insight into specific, actionable recommendations for tackling common procurement hurdles and capitalizing on opportunities for growth for public procurement practitioners and teams. Key takeaways from this panel include:

• Small actions can lead to transformative change and improved outcomes in the public procurement process. Small actions like training staff, ensuring employees are up-to-date on how policies may impact their work, developing inclusion practices, and incorporating procurement specialists into other internal teams can increase jurisdiction capacity and cultivate a culture of collaboration.
• There is not a single right digital tool. Making sure that the right partners and stakeholders are included in the procurement process can drive more change and improvements in outcomes than introducing any single technology can.
• One prominent challenge in public procurement is the lack of diversity in experience, background, and the vendors awarded contracts. According to the National Equity Atlas, people of color are 39% of the population, own 29% of businesses, and yet they are winning less than 12% of federal contracts. Making the RFP process more accessible, introducing startup- and entrepreneur-in-residence programs, community-based requirements, and open vendor challenges can help bring in a new and diverse pool of talent.
• The RFP process needs to be more open, competitive, and equitable. Building an inclusive and accessible RFP process, in order to ease the application process and extend the pool of vendors to more M/WBEs, can help jurisdictions reach a more diverse set of vendors and potential awardees.

Price closed out the panel thanking participants and sharing Reconceptualizing Public Procurement to Strengthen State Benefits Delivery and Improve Outcomes and the Open Contracting Partnership’s Quickstart Guide: 15 practical strategies for open, fairer, and better public procurement.

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