Hilma serves even better
The renewed Hilma online service (hankintailmoitukset.fi) was launched in February 2020. Hilma was renewed in close cooperation with its users. Guidelines in the reform have been increased openness, a user-centred approach and continuous development. The service is free and open for all.
“Cooperation with procurement units and suppliers has been truly positive. Both groups have been excited to participate in the user tests and we have invested in listening to Hilma’s users when developing new functions”, says Tiina Luoma, Hansel’s service manager.
During the spring and early summer, Hilma’s further development was reviewed with the service design partner Hellon, and Hilma’s steering group was given a vision of which direction the service will be developed. In September, the Hilma online service’s ownership transferred from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment to the Ministry of Finance. In 2020, Hilma’s data security was audited twice: tendering in spring and checking ESPDs and authoritative data in December.
Open public procurement
A small-scale acquisition form was published on Hilma in spring, which a buyer can use to notify of their purchases that remain below the national threshold values. Notifying of small-scale acquisitions in Hilma supports the openness of procurement and fair treatment of suppliers. Small-scale acquisition tendering does not fall under the scope of the Act on Public Procurement and Concession Contracts, and tendering can be implemented with lighter procedures.
In the autumn, a common European ESDP document was built in Hilma, through which procurement units can submit tenders and receive offers as electronic documents. This enables receiving offers also for those procurement units that have no commercial, electric tendering system.
Many other improvements were made to Hilma in 2020, such as for the search alert and selection wizard, as well as a new feature for adding a consultant or other user outside an organisation for procurement. Now, you can also search for a company’s details on Hilma directly from the YTJ business information system.
Solutions for sustainable development from the HAKA idea competition
Finland’s first national procurement strategy launched in September 2020 was a source of inspiration for the HAKA idea competition. In the HAKA idea competition organised together by the Ministry of Finance and Helsinki Think Company, a group of 13 multidisciplinary teams from different backgrounds gathered in November–December to develop solution proposals for improving public procurement. The teams innovated new features related to responsibility for Hilma. The idea of the winning team, Social Impact, aims at promoting responsibility by integrating new features for Hilma that help acknowledge responsibility criteria when devising tendering announcements and promote the public monitoring of the responsibility rate of procurement.
Hilma’s development continues as part of the Procurement Finland programme. Service development is completely open, and it is implemented based on regular user feedback and testing. Hansel performs the development work under the Ministry of Finance’s assignment. You can visit Hilma’s test site at testi.hankintailmoitukset.fi.
In 2020, over 17,000 procurement announcements were published on Hilma. The weekly number of users was roughly 30,000.