PaulBoroday
commented
5 years ago Hey! In MTender's contracts we are using the following approach:
{
"parties": [
{
"persons": [
{
"title": "Mr",
"name": "John Smith",
"identifier": {
"scheme": "",
"id": "",
"uri": ""
},
"businessFunction": [
{
"type": "authority",
"classification": {
"scheme": "",
"id": "",
"uri": ""
},
"jobTitle": "Chief Executive Officer",
"period": {
"startDate": ""
},
"documents": [
{
"id": "",
"docType": "regulatoryDocument",
"url": ""
}
]
}
]
}
]
}
]
}As you can see we are indicating business function for each disclosed person. The structure description is following:
- type - is a code of the function taken from the codelist and used for the contract life-cycle implementation
- classification - basically classification of the role according to ISCO-8
- jobTitle - as it is for the contract generation
- period - the period of occupation
- documents - proof(s) of the position
More details here
jpmckinney
ColinMaudry
woodbine
duncandewhurst
mrshll1001
JachymHercher
neelima-j
yolile
Problem
Presently, entries in the
partiesarray are onlyOrganizationobjects:Organizationhas adescriptionof "A party (organization)". In other words, all parties must be organizations, at present, according to the schema. Many of the extensions to this object add organization-specific fields that don't make sense for people.If any natural persons belong in the
partiesarray, we will need to change the schema.Sidebar: Exceptional case: Sole traders: When governments award contracts to natural persons, they are often treated administratively as if they were corporations. For example, in Canada, natural persons with significant commercial activities must register a GST (VAT) ID the same as a corporation. This being the case, it's fine to use the
Organizationobject for sole traders in OCDS.Background
368 anticipated allowing natural persons as parties, but it's not clear that this was realized, beyond the special case of sole traders.
Discussion
In terms of what belongs in the
partiesarray, the field is described as "Information on the parties … who are involved in the contracting process and their roles." Going over the types of individuals that have come up:it would not make sense to present such people alongside other parties; this would likely confuse users, especially given that an unaware tool won't be able to draw the link between the many people and their related organizations.
621 discusses a local extension that would use the
partiesarray for attendees of clarification meetings, including potential bidders (organizations) and public servants (natural persons). My interpretation is that the public servants are not parties, but are instead there on behalf of the buyer.Other examples of natural persons are members of approval or award committees, etc. This is a more ambiguous scenario. However, I think it can still be said that, even in the temporary role of a juror in a design contest, that person is working on behalf of the buyer to determine the winner.
Proposal
For the above natural persons, we can consider a new field (
people) on the Organization object to collect all the relevant people and their respective roles within/with respect to that organization. In that case, unaware tools would display people within the appropriate context of their related organization.As of writing, we don't have a use case for natural persons in the
partiesarray (besides sole traders). If we do, however, we'll need to change the schema.This issue has at least raised the need to better document the use of the
partiesarray, and the treatment of natural persons in OCDS.