The Ministry of Employment and Social Security's 2015 Procurement Plan was approved by a communicated Order of the Minister of Employment and Social Security of 10 February 2015. 

Although there are other experiences in planning and programming administrative contracting in the General Administration of the State, this MEYSS Procurement Plan is a pioneering and innovative initiative due to its broad scope (including all MEYSS bodies, agencies and entities), due to the systematic and in advance presentation of all contracts to be concluded in one year and to enhance transparency, publicity and concurrence of contractual activity. 

The Plan includes the basic details of the contracts that will be initiated or will be extended during 2015 by the MEYSS as a whole, including its 3 autonomous agencies (Public State Employment Service, Wage Guarantee Fund and National Institute for Safety and Health at Work) and the management entities and common services of the Social Security (National Social Security Institute, Social Security General Treasury, Social Institute of the Navy, General Social Security Intervention, Social Security Information Management and Social Security Legal Service), both in the central services and in the Ministry's peripheral network. 

Since the beginning of the legislature, MEYSS has developed a process of streamlining and simplifying its administrative contracting. This process is generally part of the measures of administrative rationalization, simplification and elimination of duplicities and bureaucratic obstacles that make up the Report for the Reform of Public Administrations (the CORA Report, by its initials in Spanish), which was submitted to the Council of Ministers on 21 June 2013. More particularly, the process developed by MEYSS is linked to the measures of rationalization and centralization of contracts in the General State Administration that are being promoted by the Government, through the Ministry of Finance and Public Administrations. 

The process of streamlining and simplifying administrative procurement for MEYSS has five objectives:

• Obtain cost savings in the Department's contracts, taking into account the context of budgetary stability, financial sustainability and austerity in public spending.
• Simplify the number of contracting bodies by focusing on the development of centralized contracting practices and gradually configuring MEYSS as a single client.
• Improve the efficiency and effectiveness of recruitment within the Department through the use of more uniform recruitment management procedures.
• Increase the quality of goods purchased and of services and supplies contracted by the Department.
• Increase transparency and publicity of contracts concluded by MEYSS, encouraging greater and better concurrence in contracting. 

To achieve these objectives, MEYSS has so far taken several initiatives: 

• The approval of Order ESS/249/2014, of 13 February, which creates and regulates the Contracting Board and the Single Contracting Board of the Ministry of Employment and Social Security. Unlike other Ministries with a complex administrative organization, MEYSS had never had a Contracting Board. Since then, MEYSS has had a Contracting Board which acts as a collegiate contracting body for certain goods, services and supplies, although its scope of action does not include the autonomous agencies or the entities managing and common services of the Social Security.
• The creation of a Group for the Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation of Contracting in the MEYSS, to which the first additional provision of the above-mentioned Order ESS/249/2014, of 13 February, refers. A group with a broader membership, as it also includes the three autonomous agencies and the Social Security management bodies and common services, and with functions of programming and evaluation of the recruitment of the Department as a whole.
• The approval of Order ESS/252/2014, of 13 February, which delegates and approves the delegations of the exercise of competencies in matters of recruitment to the administrative bodies of the Ministry of Employment and Social Security. The contracting bodies with delegated powers within the scope of the Under-Secretariat, which numbered 96, have been reduced to only 3: the Assistant Secretary, the Assistant Director-General for Financial Administration and the Senior Officer.
• Approval of this 2015 MEYSS Contracting Plan. 

The Plan systematically presents all contracts that are to be processed or which will be extended by MEYSS during 2015. For each contract, basic information is identified: contracting authority; type of contract; subject matter of the contract; procurement procedure; tender amount; duration of the contract; whether it is a new contract or an extension; and the estimated quarter for the start of the tender. The Plan has no legal effect, as it does not constitute the purpose of establishing obligations for contracting bodies or generating rights in favour of third parties. The Plan is programmatic and informative. 

In total, the Plan includes 4,655 contracts, for a tender amount of close to 298 million euros, the details of which can be consulted in the document inserted below. 

In conclusion, the approval of the MEYSS 2015 Contracting Plan makes explicit the Ministry of Employment and Social Security's willingness to faithfully comply with the legally established principles that must inform Public Administration recruitment, particularly strengthening its publicity and transparency. 

In addition, the MEYSS 2015 Contracting Plan also aims to fulfill one of the strategic objectives of the Ministry of Employment and Social Security for this term of office: achieving greater effectiveness and efficiency in public governance and making more and better labor and employment, social and migration policies with necessarily more austere budgets.

 February 17, 2015

• MEYSS Contracting Plan 2015.