The discretionary spend index (DSI) is the share of an authority's money spent without a tender: direct purchases plus offline purchases, out of everything it spent. It is not in itself a sign of fraud, because a direct purchase is legal below the ceiling. But a large share of a large budget shows how many decisions are taken without competition. One row is one authority in one year.
Authority-years assessed
1
Spent without a tender
4.63 Mn.
National index
62.2%
Authorities above 60% by year
Years marked * are not fully covered by the data: 2018, 2026.
What the money spent without a tender bought
The 12 largest CPV groups by value; the other 304 are added into a single tile. Only money spent without a tender (direct and offline).
National index, weighted by money, by year
How it is computed
Computed on every award from 2018 to today.
- Direct purchases and offline purchases are taken. Both are direct purchases; an offline purchase does not even go through the catalogue.
- Tender contracts are taken separately, by the value signed. Framework agreements are left out.
- Money is dated by when it was spent: the finalisation date for direct purchases and offline purchases, the contract date for tenders. If an offline purchase has no finalisation date yet, its publication date is used.
- It is grouped by authority and year. Each authority also has a row with its total across all years, shown when no year is chosen.
- The index is the two direct streams divided by everything the authority spent, as a percentage.
- Only authorities with at least 3 million lei in a year, or 20 million across all years, are included. Below that the index says nothing: a small authority need not run tenders, and almost every row would read 100%.
Thresholds
- Minimum spending in a year: 3.000.000 RON
- Minimum spending across all years: 20.000.000 RON
- Above 60%: a strongly discretionary profile
The indicator measures how the money was spent, not whether it was lawful. It does not check whether a purchase passed the ceiling; indicators #01 and #02 do that. Actual payments are not in the data.
A high index can have legitimate reasons: an authority with no investment in a year spends almost only on running costs. Read it with indicator #06, which shows how much competition the tenders drew.
| Contracting authority | Year | Direct | Off-catalogue | Without a tender | Tenders | Total spent | DSI index |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SC LUCRARI DRUMURI SI PODURI SA VASLUI CUI: 10946600 | 2023 | 4,626,772 | 0 | 4,626,772 | 2,806,407 | 7,433,179 | 62.2% |
- Contracting authority
- The authority that spent. One row is one authority in one year.
- Year
- The year the money was spent. The All years row is the authority's total and is shown by default; years do not add up.
- Direct
- Direct purchases. The link opens them for the same authority and year.
- Off-catalogue
- Offline purchases: direct purchases made outside the catalogue. The link opens them.
- Without a tender
- Direct plus offline: the amount in question. The table is ordered by it.
- Tenders
- Tender contracts. The link opens the authority's tenders; there the year is the notice's, not the contract's, so the list does not reproduce the figure exactly.
- Total spent
- Everything the authority spent that year, in all streams. 90% of a small budget and 40% of a large one do not mean the same thing.
- DSI index
- The share without a tender, as a percentage of the total. Under 40% green, 40–60% amber, above 60% red. The colour shows the band, not a fault.
The same data, through the API
Every figure on this page comes from the public API, through the endpoints below. The parameters each one takes are in the documentation; each needs an access key.
/api/v1/red-flags/dsi/distribution/api/v1/red-flags/dsi/api/v1/red-flags/overview/years/api/v1/red-flags/dsi/cpv-spend