ReCoRD

Motivation

In 2017, a Eurobarometer survey showed that 4 out of 10 people were sure of the existence of corruption in public auctions conducted by the state. The phenomenon of "local barons" and of ambiguous public procurement for questionable amounts are examples of how corruption manifests itself. At the level of local public institutions, the administration of public funds especially shows irregularities. This is partly due to a low level of supervision but also due to the lack of experience of the representatives of the institutions.

Goals

Record (Reducing Corruption Risks with Data) is a project designed to combat corruption in high-risk public procurement sectors by promoting prevention and risk management tools. We want to encourage civil society to keep an eye on how institutions spend public money, to encourage investigative journalists to uncover irregularities, and to encourage the reporting of those who see corruption in the institutions in which they work.

We believe that we can help reduce the level of corruption in public procurement by detecting risks early, ensuring a high level of integrity in public procurement and the use of European funds, and encouraging competitiveness between companies applying for state contracts.

Project is a collaboration with ePaństwo Foundation, K-Monitor, Acces Info and Civio. Spain, Romania, Poland and Hungary will be targeted with the following objectives:

1. Development of the online Record platform that will be used by legislators, civil society and investigative journalists to monitor the public procurement process and identify corruption risks.
2. Training investigative journalists to use this open source platform.
3. Encourage members of civil society to monitor the risk of corruption using this platform and help reduce the risk of corruption
4. Presenting options to reduce the risk of corruption to national and European legislators, including measures to facilitate the work of members of civil society and investigative journalists.
5. An assessment of the risk of corruption at European level by using the open source platform that can be taken over and adapted by public administrations and civil society.

Calendar and supporters

The project is funded by the European Commission and started in January 2019, with a duration of 2 years. We are happy to be part of an initiative to help fight corruption on local level and to encourage journalists and other members of civil society to look at this issue, including from the perspective of issues that similarly affect several European countries.