Simplifying contracts

Goal

Simplify and streamline our contracting documents to make procurement less burdensome for suppliers.

Description

Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) is responding to suppliers' concerns that the procurement process is too complex and administratively burdensome. The department is reviewing and improving its contract terms and conditions, which involves:

• using clearer and simpler language
• removing duplicate information
• applying commercial best practices
• removing outdated information

This will make it easier for suppliers to read and understand the contracts. The exercise will also include benchmarking Canada's current contracting practices against other jurisdictions to improve them and ensure they respond to today's business context. Simplifying contracts will also contribute to improving the efficiency of procurement.

Status

Ongoing. To date, PSPC has examined large volumes of contractual documents. We have tested simplification concepts in active procurements, including recent artificial intelligence and software-as-a-service tenders. Feedback from the supplier community to date has been positive. We are continuing to refine procurement documents. We will continue to further simplify and reduce the size of routine and highly competed goods and services contracts by at least 50% by 2020.