Over the last two years, the city of Ottawa has awarded (and recorded) 4,455 contracts with a value over $25,000 (Canadian). The total value of all these contracts comes out to around $1.8 billion. The largest contracts were awarded as follows – and their approximate values:
1- Combined sewage storage tunnel construction. - $108 million
2 - To provide wheelchair accessible and non-accessible taxi services for Transit Services' Para Transpo. - $49 million
3 - Standing Offer for the supply and delivery of genuine Cummins parts and components. – $27 million
4 - To provide all labour, equipment and materials for Robert O Pickard Environmental Centre thickening and dewatering building upgrade. – $19 million
5 - Supply and deliver Bulk Clear Diesel Fuel ULSD# 2 to Transit Services for the period 01 May 2017 to 30 April 2020. – $19 million
Looking at the distribution over time, we can see that both the number of contracts, and the amount awarded, are fairly steady bi-yearly. We can also see that the Sewage Tunnel contract, awarded to Dragados, is a massive outlier in the last two years.
Bi-yearly count of contracts awarded
Bi-yearly amount ($) of contracts awarded
*Bi-yearly count of contracts awarded - rounded, note the outlier in the back-half of 2016
We can break down the contracts awarded further, taking a look at contracts awarded by department. Unfortunately, the data is not exactly clean when it comes to department listing, and some are listed in variety of ways. I have cleaned it with the information I have on the dataset, but there may be some contracts that get put in the wrong categories.
Counts by department
Rounded amounts by department
Interestingly, the largest contract was awarded by Planning, Infrastructure and Economic Development (PIED), which also awarded the second-most contracts. However, multiple departments have awarded more money over the last two years than PIED.
Contracts can either be competed over, or they can be non-competitive, for a variety of reasons. Over the last two years, 606 contracts were awarded in a non-competitive process.
Interestingly, the amount awarded between competitive and non-competitive contracts is very close, despite the disparity in contracts. Here is a list of the number of non-competitive contracts awarded, by rationale.
These are the counts.
And these are the amounts.
Well, with the high amount between Absence of Competition and Only One Source, it would appear that either the city has a limited pool of companies, or they have many more specialized needs than the market can support.
Let's take a look at the top 20 contracts in this category.
At first, I was surprised by the large amount of non-competitive contracts awarded. After this review, I feel a little bit more comfortable, knowing that nearly half the contracts awarded face no competition. However, as in everything, I am sure there is a solution to non-competitive competitions. Perhaps it will simply come about as the city grows, or perhaps improved connections between Canadian cities, and even international ones, will allow for an increase in competitive competitions.