Open Data Contracting - modelling frameworks

[Ian Makgill]

All,

I spoke to Sarah Bird (hi Sara) at OKFest about the need to have the flexibility to manage competitions that occur within framework contracts. 

Below is the text of what I sent through.

Happy to hear comments or to be told I'm talking tripe and that these are bad ideas.

Ian

Frameworks:

You're setting up frameworks as additional release events that hang off a parent event, so using the standard as it stands I can have the initial contract release which is the top level event, and you're proposing that we will be able to add further contracts to that release, to replicate frameworks. I believe that you're taking exactly the right approach, but you need to be able to hang more than just a contract award notice at the next level. 

Here's an example of what UK Govt calls 'mini competitions': http://ccs.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/sites/default/files/contracts/Schedule%201%20-%20The%20Mini%20Competition%20Process_0.pdf

Basically competitions are run, but only between the suppliers listed on a framework. In this scenario, we need to be able to list not just a contract award, but also the the mini tender specification and any amendments to that spec. Why is this important? Under the current design, you'd only ever know when a contract is awarded, but not if it was put through a mini-competition. Knowing whether mini-competitions occurred is good because it shows if buyers are genuinely seeking competition.

So your structure is right, (everything hangs off the contract) but you just need to allow for a full set sub-docs to hang off the contract, not just limited to contract release docs. I realise that this may be too arcane for you and Michael and be too complex for this phase, so I understand if you don't include it, but it is important to mention it.

Addition to the standard:

Would you consider adding an optional field in the publishingMeta structure? I think it would be good to include URI here as well. Publishers should be able to reference the location of each and every release as a unique URI.