Why Open Procurement Data Holding You Back

Open procurement data should be a goldmine for public sector buyers.
In reality? It’s more like a minefield.

In this article, guest-written by Luke Templeton, one of Tussell's top researchers, he breaks down the hidden flaws in open procurement data - and why it's making your procurement strategy worse.

Skip ahead to read about:

• Why is procurement data so messy?
• Why open procurement data is costing you time and money
• What clean data looks like
• Takeaway

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If you’ve ever tried to use open data for market analysis, you’ve probably run into the same headaches I see every day as a researcher:

• Notices scattered across different portals

• Spending data buried in thousands of files

• Duplicate or inconsistent supplier names - especially in firms with subsidiaries or recent acquisitions 

• Missing framework and call-off details

• Inaccurate SIC codes or procedure types

And the worst part? You don’t always realise the gaps until it’s too late - when you've overspent on a product or service, or you missed an opportunity to award a contract to a VCSE, SME, or local firm.

The problem isn’t that the data doesn’t exist - it’s that it’s not decision-ready.

🚨 Why Is Procurement Data So Messy?

Anyone working in procurement knows how hectic it can get - and with the  Procurement Act now live, there are 13 new notice types to manage.

It’s no surprise that things slip through the cracks:

• A supplier name spelled slightly differently

• A missing framework reference

• Multiple teams posting notices to report the same joint procurement

Now multiply those small errors by the thousands of notices published by your team (and others across the country) every single day across numerous portals.

And that’s before we even get to invoice-level spend data - which your team most likely publishes in a completely different area of the internet to comparable buyers.

💸 Why Open Procurement Data is Costing You Time & Money

When your data is messy, so is your strategy. Duplicates can inflate or deflate SME, VCSE and local spending figures. Missing framework references hide key routes to market you could be using. Inconsistent names make benchmarking impossible.

These gaps and inconsistencies aren’t just frustrating - they distort the market view you’re basing key decisions on. 

How can you demand better deals from suppliers when you don't know how much they're charging the rest of the market? How can you build an SME or VCSE action plan when you can't accurately benchmark your current spending? Etc.

💫 What Clean Data Looks Like

Cleaning procurement data isn’t about making spreadsheets neater - it’s about making intelligence reliable. That means:

1. Standardising formats from multiple portals

2. Consolidating suppliers and buyers into verified entities

3. Deduplicating contracts and validating key fields

4. Mapping frameworks and call-offs to show which routes to market are being taken

5. Filling spending gaps so you can track which buyers are spending what

Done well, it transforms a tangled mess of records into a clear, connected view of the market.

📊 Case in Point: Local Government Index 2025

When I compiled the Local Government Procurement Index 2025 report - comparing how much local government buyers spend with SMEs, VCSEs, and local firms - this process made all the difference.

Clean, connected data revealed:

• Councils spent £35bn with local suppliers in 2024, equivalent to around 1% of UK GDP

• Nearly 70% of councils in the North West performed above average in both local and SME/VCSE spend

• VCSEs are slowly losing market share in local government

Source: Local Government Procurement Index 2025

Without cleaning, these insights would have been hidden, distorted, or missed entirely. To put it bluntly, the report would have been worthless.

No client could have relied on it to make informed decisions about how to improve SME, VCSE and local spending.

✨ Takeaway

Open procurement data is a great starting point - but if you want to make strategic decisions with confidence, you need more than “open.” You need "decision-ready".

Whether you’re using a large in-house team or an external partner like Tussell, investing in data quality will pay off in more accurate benchmarking and target setting, sharper supplier and market analysis, and less time spent searching for compliant frameworks.

At Tussell, this focus on clarity is why the Cabinet Office, CCS, and others already use our insights to guide their public sector strategy.

📊 Book a quick 10-minute chat with our sales team to discover how our market-leading procurement insights can help you.