Patrimonio y Contratación sets guidelines to plan Canarian public procurement

The General Directorate of Heritage and Procurement has approved the guidelines regarding public procurement planning that must be applied by the entire regional public sector of the Canary Islands. The measure is formalized in the Resolution of September 1, 2026, published in the Official Gazette of the Canary Islands (Boletín Oficial de Canarias) no. 192, of September 24, 2026, section III. Other Resolutions, pages 35255 to 35268 (official reference BOC-A-2026-192-3330). The text requires each department and entity to prepare and disseminate a Procurement Plan (PC) containing the contracts it intends to tender.

One plan per ministry and per entity

The guidelines apply to the regional public sector defined in article 2.1 of Law 11/2006, of December 11, on the Canary Islands Public Treasury, included in the concept of the public sector of article 3.1 of Law 9/2017, of November 8, on Public Sector Contracts (LCSP). Within the scope of the regional Administration, the plans will have a departmental scope and will include the programming of all contracting bodies of each ministry; in the rest of the public sector, there will be a single PC per entity.

The plan must include all contracts that, according to the maturity level of the files, are expected to be tendered in the fiscal year or years to which it refers, including those with early processing. Tendering is understood as the publication of the tender on the Public Sector Procurement Platform (PLACSP) or in the corresponding Contractor Profile. The PC may be annual or multi-annual and must be approved in the fiscal year preceding the one to which it refers.

Minimum content, publicity, and monitoring

For each planned contract, the plan shall include at least:

• Ministry, entity or contracting body, name and type of contract.
• Processing, object (CPV), lots and award procedure.
• Base tender budget, estimated value and duration or execution period.
• Subject to harmonized regulation, possibility of extension and geographical location.
• Provision for reservation in accordance with additional provision 4 of the LCSP.
• Estimated tender date and publication of the prior information notice.
• Special access conditions, where applicable.

The PC is estimated and non-binding, a point that must be expressly cited in the approval document. Its publicity will be guaranteed on PLACSP or the Contractor Profile and on transparency portals, in accessible and reusable formats. Each ministry or entity must issue an annual monitoring report in the first quarter of the following fiscal year, detailing the contracts tendered, awarded and formalized, failed tenders and tendered contracts that were not planned.

Background: warnings from the Court of Audit

The resolution responds to the recommendations of the Canary Islands Court of Audit, particularly its report of December 22, 2025, on the monitoring of contractual programming for the year 2023, which warned of “significant deficits” in the matter. It also cites the reports “Programming Procurement: a pending improvement in all Canary Islands public administrations” (2022) and the audit of chapter VI of real investments for the 2019-2023 financial years, dated September 30, 2025.

The text invokes article 28.4 of the LCSP, article 28.1.b) of Law 12/2014, of December 26, on transparency, and Decree 88/2023, of May 25, which includes contractual planning among the contents of the Management Plans. The competence of the General Directorate derives from article 38.j) of the Organic Regulation of the Ministry of Finance and Relations with the European Union, approved by Decree 107/2024, of July 31. The Public Procurement Advisory Board of the Canary Islands was heard in the session of June 10, 2026.

Commercial companies and digitalization

Public commercial companies must integrate contractual programming into their ordinary strategic planning instruments, ensure that it is complete and realistic, establish formal monitoring mechanisms, reinforce the internal control of contractual information, and encourage the involvement of their administrative bodies. Furthermore, departments and entities shall adopt the necessary measures to digitalize and automate the planning process and its supervision.

Annex I lists the entities subject to the obligation, including the fourteen ministries, the Presidency of the Government, autonomous bodies such as the Canary Islands Health Service or the Canary Islands Housing Institute, public business entities such as Puertos Canarios, companies such as GRAFCAN, GESPLAN, or VISOCAN, public foundations, and the El Rincón Consortium. Annexes II and III incorporate plan and evaluation report templates. The competent management center for procurement governance shall submit a compliance report to the Governing Council in the first semester of each calendar year.

The guidelines apply from their publication in the Official Gazette of the Canary Islands and are signed by the Director General of Assets and Procurement, Juan Domingo Cabrera Delgado, in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria on September 1, 2026. For bidding companies, the change means having advance information on planned tenders, which facilitates the preparation of bids and increases competition; for the ministries, it implies aligning procurement with the budget and strategic planning, and being accountable to auditing bodies for the degree of execution of their plans.

Source: Official Gazette of the Canary Islands, no. 192, of September 24, 2026, section III. Other Resolutions, page 35255 (official reference: BOC-A-2026-192-3330).