Methodology & rules

Last reviewed: on each data build

What this site does

The National Treasury’s Office of the Chief Procurement Officer (OCPO) publishes quarterly reports of deviations (departures from normal competitive procurement) and expansions (enlargements of existing contracts). This site downloads those public reports, extracts each line item, and applies a fixed set of rules to the reason that the department itself recorded for the deviation.

The aim is narrow and specific: to highlight entries where the recorded reason — typically a short phrase such as “sole source” or “single source” — does not, on its own, explain why ordinary competitive procurement was not possible. The premise, drawn from procurement practice, is that a label is a conclusion, not a justification.

How each entry is presented — three parts

Every flag is built from three separate things, kept deliberately distinct so that fact and opinion never blur:

• What the register records — the reason quoted verbatim from the official report. This is a fact.
• General position — a general, verifiable statement about the market or service (for example, that penetration testing is offered by many qualified providers). This is a fact.
• Why this entry is flagged — the opinion: that, on the face of the register, the recorded reason does not establish that the supplier was the only option.

The rules

Flags are raised by transparent, deterministic rules — there is no hidden scoring model. The main rules:

General

• Bare sole-source label — the reason is essentially only “sole/single source/supplier/provider”, with no supporting evidence.
• No supporting evidence referenced — no mention of OEM letters, IP or source-code rights, statutory mandate, exclusivity or market analysis.
• Incumbency / renewal as reason — reliance on renewal, continuity or an existing provider, with no market test or genuine lock-in shown.
• Preferred-supplier wording — “preferred” is not the same as exclusive.
• Limited bid without stated basis — a limited bid is cited without explaining the market restriction.
• Poor market response treated as sole source — only one quote received is not the same as one possible provider.
• Conference / membership / training, or venue / catering / event services labelled sole source absent exclusivity, protocol, security or timing grounds.
• Date inconsistency — e.g. a contract expiry recorded before its start.

Category-specific

• Global ICT & technology treated as sole supplier — a requirement for a global software or ICT vendor's product (Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, SAP, and the like) does not prove that authorised resellers, Licensing Solution Providers, the vendor's partner/CSP channel, SITA channels or qualified providers could not supply or support it. For example, a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement is contracted through the vendor but administered by an LSP, yet licensing, cloud and support can be sourced via partners.
• Cybersecurity service treated as sole source — vulnerability scanning, security assessments and penetration testing are competitive services offered by multiple providers.
• Legal / consulting treated as sole source — generally available from multiple firms absent continuity, conflict, urgency or specialist grounds.
• Business-intelligence subscription — contestable unless unique data ownership is shown.

How the priority score works

Each entry receives a priority from 1 to 5, combining the number and weight of flags with the value of the deviation, and reduced where the reason itself points to genuinely stronger justification:

• 5 — high-value, high-risk, contestable service with a weak or circular sole-source justification.
• 4 — material ICT, cyber, software, support or professional-service renewal with weak evidence.
• 3 — a possible sole-source case, but insufficient evidence in the register.
• 2 — likely defensible, but supporting documentation should still be requested.
• 1 — low-risk or clearly defensible on statutory, OEM or emergency grounds.

Where the recorded reason references OEM/sole-distributor letters, intellectual property or source-code control, a statutory mandate, or a genuine emergency, the score is reduced accordingly — because those are exactly the kinds of evidence that can make a sole-source deviation legitimate.

Limits of this analysis

This tool reads only the published register. Supporting documents that can fully justify a deviation — OEM authorisations, exclusivity agreements, market analyses, emergency approvals — exist outside the register and are not visible here. An absence of evidence in the register is therefore not evidence of absence. Text and figures are extracted automatically from PDFs and may contain extraction errors. A small number of entries with badly formatted source cells are shown without a reliable value. None of the flags are findings of wrongdoing.

Right of reply & corrections

If you represent a department, entity or supplier named in the register and believe an entry is inaccurate, has been mischaracterised, or omits justification that exists, you are entitled to respond. Send the entry details and your response to contact@tender-deviations.org. Substantiated corrections will be reflected, and a right-of-reply note can be attached to the entry. We aim to acknowledge within a reasonable period.