report on spanish national translation contracts€¦ · report on spanish national translation...

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Report on Spanish National Translation

Contracts

Public Procurement Market Research: Process and Findings

This report is the result of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) programme

Action No: 2017-EU-IA-0149

Agreement number: INEA/CEF/ICT/A2017/1565776

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Table of Content

Activity Overview 5

Contributors 5

Revisions 5

Executive Summary 5

Introduction 7

Country Profile & Geographical Divide 8

Geographical Specifications 11

Data Extrapolation 13

Methodology 15

Findings 16

Extracting the Value of Translation 21

Company Breakdown for Translation Services 25

Translation Contracts and Language 28

Translation Contract Breakdown by Sector 29

Comments 39

Conclusion 41

5

Activity Overview

Contributors

The following consortium members were involved in the development of this

document.

Member Organisation

Carmen Herranz-Carr Pangeanic

Carolina Herranz-Carr Pangeanic

Revisions

Who What When

Alex Helle

Amando Estela

Executive Summary

This report details findings from 2015-2018 on translation contracts from public

administrations to the private sector in Spain. The figures below provide an overview

of the calculations within this report based on the expenditure by year for translation

and interpretation services. These figures do not include framework agreements

comprised of multiple services.

Total contract expenditure in net award fee for 2015 amounted to over €35 million


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In 2018 the provisional expenditure on translation contracts in net award fee currently

amounts to over €15 million

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Introduction

This report summarises the research carried out by the NEC TM consortium on

mapping relationships of public translation contracts across the European Union. It

will review the data mining methodology and detail the progress and findings of the

first completed case study for Spain.

The NEC TM action aims to increase the volume of parallel data available to the

European Commission and to promote the flow of translation data, specifically

Translation Memories that can be put to use for machine learning. NEC TM will build

and deploy a TM repository at national level with sharing capabilities to a central

platform with fuzzy match capabilities that will allow public administrations to fully

leverage TMs. In order to achieve this, the project seeks to engage public

administrations through a pan-European data sharing awareness campaign and the

publishing of two White Papers.

The White Papers allows the consortium to establish a credible report based on

market research (public contracts) and extrapolate national and EU costs on

translations from the past 4 years. It examines potential savings and provides a basis

for how much translated data is available from contractors. The first White Paper also

covers 3 consortium countries plus 7 early adopters of the NEC TM platform, serving

as a proof of concept. This Paper will be published in March 2019.

The market research conducted by the NEC TM consortium pools key data from public

translation contracts to build a report database that considers each member state of

the EU. The data includes but is not limited to buyers, vendors, amounts, estimated

contract value etc. Contract data has been mined from Spanish government bids and

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contracts for translation services ranging from 01/01/15 to date.1 At present, the

report database has been completed for Spain, the first national case study of this

investigation and a target early adopter for the NEC TM platform.

This data has been sourced from TED along with the national and regional official

gazettes for Spain. The methods used in the research methodology for Spain will be

applied to other member states included in the study.

Country Profile & Geographical Divide

Spain is a unitary state that includes 17 autonomous regions formed by 50 provinces

and two autonomous cities (Ceuta and Melilla). Spain has five official languages. One

of them, Español or Castellano (Spanish), is official throughout the territory of the

country and is also the official language in many Latin American countries and

Equatorial Guinea. Spanish is an official language in the UN and in all its agencies, the

EU, and many other international organizations such as FIFA. The other four, Catalan,

Gallego (Galician) and Euskera (Basque) are spoken regionally.

The NEC TM study considered three administrative divisions in Spain that possess

political, administrative, and financial powers; Level 1: central, Level 2: regional

(autonomous communities, i.e. regions and provinces), and Level 3: local

1 The research on translation contracts has a potential extension date to 31/12/2019 . The remaining dates of 2018

for this case study will be completed early 2019, upon confirmation of end date.

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(municipalities / city councils). The country’s territorial organisation meant translation

contract data must be sourced from national, regional and local gazettes.

● Level 1 contract data was mined from official national gazettes BOE2 (Boletín Oficial del

Estado), and Contratación del Estado3.

● Level 2 contract data was mined from regional gazettes of the country’s autonomous

communities; such as DOG4, the official gazette of Galicia

● Level 3 contracts were searched in local authorities’ gazettes, such as GENCAT5, for

Barcelona’s City Council.

To complement and expand the search, results were cross-referenced with TED.eu6 and other

reputable sources, such as language industry intelligence provider Slator7, through its RFP

2 https://www.boe.es/

3 https://contrataciondelestado.es/wps/portal/plataforma

4https://www.xunta.gal/diario-oficial-

galicia/portalPublicoHome.do?fecha=20181004&ruta=%2Fsrv%2Fwww%2Fdoga%2FPublicad

os%2F2018%2F20181004%2FIndice190_gl.html

5 http://web.gencat.cat/ca/inici/

6 https://ted.europa.eu/TED/search/searchResult.do

7 https://slator.com/rfp/

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Center along with tendering websites such as MNH Licitaciones8 These searches were finalised

with a loose engine search.

Local administrations in Spain number 8,124 municipalities; each with individual contracting

powers and publishing websites. For time and efficiency purposes, the NEC TM study

streamlined its research and data mining efforts for Level 3. To gain a general view of the

market size at Level 3, the study at this level considered translation contracts from the capital

city of each province.

For example, research on Level 3 translation contracts in the autonomous community of

Catalonia, was mined from the capital of each of its four provinces: Barcelona, Tarragona,

Girona and Lleida. Taking the province of Barcelona, for example, Level 3 data was solely

included from the municipality within the provincial capital (metropolitan area); i.e Barcelona’s

City Council. The same method was applied to each provincial capital in Catalonia. This was

carried out to ascertain a general view of the market expenditure instead of mining the 947

municipalities (311 pertain to Barcelona, 221 Girona, 184 Tarragona and 231 Lleida) that

comprise Catalonia.

8 https://mnhlicitaciones.com/

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Geographical Specifications

Level 1 consisted of Spain.

Level 2 consisted of the autonomous communities of Spain. Out of the 17 autonomous

communities in Spain, translation contracts were found in the following 15 autonomous

communities:

Basque

Country

Balearic

Islands

Galicia Basque

Country

Cataloni

a

Andalucía Asturi

as

Catalonia

Aragón Valencia Aragó

n

Aragón

Castilla-

La

Mancha

Málaga Ceuta

y

Melilla

Castilla-

La

Mancha

Navarra Madrid Canta

bria

Navarra

As mentioned above, research for Level 3 was streamlined to the capital of each province within

each autonomous community. Out of the 50 provinces in Spain, translation contracts were

found in the capital of each of the following provinces for Level 3:

Barcelona Almería Granada Benidorm

Murcia Logroño Pamplona Castellón

Girona Lleida Córdoba Huelva

Tarragona Alava Zaragoza Sevilla

Madrid Bizkaia Valencia Granada

Alava

Santiago de

Compostela Getxo Pamplona

Navarra Javea Gipuzkoa Benidorm

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Data Extrapolation

The table below details the key data fields entered into the Report Database.

Fig 1.

Field Description

Administration

Central/Autonomous/Local inputs were logged into the Report

Database to determine whether the contract was awarded by a

central, regional or local purchasing body

Region Geographical area was added to the Report Database

Source Links to source were added

Modality Announcement/Contract inputs were added to detect notices

and match corresponding contacts once located

Date Date of contract notice

Description Description of translation service

Domain Contracts were categorised using Eurovoc, the EU’s multilingual

thesaurus: The following sectors were identified: Agriculture

Forestry and Fisheries / Agri-foodstuffs / Business and

Competition / Economics / Education and Communications /

Employment and Working Conditions/ Energy/ Environment/

European Union / Finance/ Industry/ International Relations / Law

/ Politics / Production Technology and Research / Science / Social

Questions / Trade / Transport

Source Source language for translation

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Methodology

A variation of keywords were used when searching for translation contract data. This

method allowed us to locate contracts that had filtered through a search. For example,

“adjudicated translation contract [serial no. and/or place name]”; “translation contract

awarded [serial no. and/or place name]”; or “bid translation contract [serial no. and/or

place name]” was applied to each search for quality assurance.

Dissolved translation contracts were also added to the Report Database to ascertain

the size of the translation market and national budget for translation services in Spain.

Dissolved contract data was not included when calculating awarded contracts to the

private sector.

Notices and bid announcements that had been added to the Report Database were

later replaced with the corresponding contract once found. For the cases where

contract data for bid announcements was not located, nor was a dissolved matching

contract found, the net bid fee was used as the net award fee. This occurred during

10 instances over the period of 2015-2018. Notably, some tenders for 2018 remain

open, these have been defined as Open Notices within the analysis. The Report

Database for Spain will be extended in 2019 and this data will be added in due course.

Framework agreements over €10,000.00 for contracts that included translation

services amongst other services i.e graphic design, printing, layout, were categorised

in a separate tab within the Report Database. The framework agreements of multiple

services did not specify the amounts awarded to the supplier for the provision of

translation services, therefore 4% of the total awarded net fee has been calculated to

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determine the average value awarded to suppliers for the provision of translation

services.

The Report Database includes all contracts and notices that specify the CPV code

79530000-8 (translation services). Where the code was not located, the description

category allowed us to identify the notice or contract as a translation service tender.

Contracts that included 79530000-8 (translation services) and 79540000-1

(interpretation services) were also included, as well as contracts that included

translation and interpretation services within the description category.

In order extrapolate the average value of translation services within contracts that also

include interpretation services, 35% of the net award fee has been calculated.

Contracts with only code 79540000-1 and in absence of it, a description of only

interpretation services, were not added to the Report Database.

Findings

The calculations below are set out on a year by year basis and detail the findings from

the Report Database for Spain. They include all bid notices and awarded contracts for

translation services and translation and interpretation services. Framework

agreements for the provision of translation services along with other services have

been excluded.

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Overview of Translation Contracts and Notices 2015

Fig 2

Modality

Total

Net Bid

Net Award

Awarded Contracts 392 €36,304,930.92 €34,797,377.62

Unidentified Notices 5 €1,166,308.82 €1,166,308.82

Open Notices 0 €0.00 €0.00

Dissolved Contracts 1 €88,000.00 €0.00

2015 National budget = €37,559,239.74

(contract net bid fee total) + (unidentified notice net bid fee total) + (open notice net

bid fee total) + (dissolved contract net bid fee total)

2015 National expenditure = €35,963,686.44

(contract award net fee total) + (unidentified notice award net fee total)

It must be noted that these calculations include the cost of interpretation.

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Fig 3

Modality Total Net Bid Net Award


Unidentified Notices 3 €212,230.70 €212,230.70


Dissolved Contracts 2 €263,000.00 €0.00

2016 National budget = €13,449,727.07






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Fig 4

Modality Total Net Bid Net Award


Unidentified Notices 2 €988,000.00 €988,000.00


Dissolved Contracts 2 €2,107,473.04 €0.00

2017 National budget = €19,749,924.48






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Fig 5

Modality

Total

Net Bid

Net Award


Unidentified Notices 2 €0.00 €0.00

Open Notices 69 €35,733,631.68 €0.00

Dissolved Contracts 4 €1,384,274.05 €0.00

2018 National budget = €53,727,590.50






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Extracting the Value of Translation

Framework Agreements

A total of 18 awarded contracts from 24 framework agreements were located between

2015-2018. The table below outlines the award fee of the framework agreements

comprising of various types services along with translation. 4% has been calculated to

extract the value of translation per year.

Fig. 6 Framework Agreements

Year Contract Unid

entifi

ed

Net Worth Translation (4%)

2015 5 0 €496,430.00 €19,957.20

2016 4 0 €396,836.00 €15,873.44

2017 4 0 €280,801.36 €11,232.05

2018 5 0 €577,453.42 €23,098.14

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Interpretation Services

193 awarded contacts notices out of 1,094 were located between 2015-2018 that

contained interpretation services. Fig 7 is a breakdown of the total net award fee per

year, based solely on translation contracts.

Fig 8 breaks down the total net award fee per year of translation and interpretation

contracts.

35% has been calculated to extract the value of translation from translation and

interpretation contracts.

Framework agreements have not been included.

Fig. 7 Translation

Year Contract Unidentified Net Worth

2015 327 2 €5,928,577.67

2016 243 1 €7,528,719.87

2017 160 2 €5,199,461.91

2018 165 0 €5,558,596.15

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Fig. 8 Translation and Interpretation

Year Contract Unidentified Net Worth Translation

(35%)

2015 65 2 €30,035,108.77 €10,512,288.10

2016 25 1 €5,064,911.88 €1,772,719.16

2017 35 2 €10,062,355.37 €3,521,824.38

2018 66 0 €9,025,210.41 €3,158,823.64

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Yearly Translation Expenditure

2015 Value of translation = €16,460,822.97




(35% translation value total) + (4% translation value total) + (translation contracts

award net fee total)

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Company Breakdown for Translation Services

Figs. 9- 12 depict the suppliers that were awarded the most translation contracts

(including interpretation services) for public sector tenders between the years of 2015-

2018. The tables list the total number of contracts awarded to each company and the

total net worth of the contracts. They focus solely on translation contracts (with the

inclusion of interpretation services) awarded to individual companies and do not

include framework agreements comprising of various types services along with

translation.

Fig. 9 Top 5 companies for translation contracts awarded in 2015

Company Net Worth Contracts

Oflingua S.L €16,711,023.14 22

Seprotec, Traducción e

Interpretación,SL

€11,668,013.71 35

New Technologies Global

Systems, S.L

€715,000.00 1

Km Ai Arabi, SL €680,126.95 3

ABD Asociación Bienestar y

Desarrollo

€494,995.30 1

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Interpretación,SL

€2,894,703.51 15

Oflingua S.L €2,282,779.16 12

Hori Hori, S.A. €1,878,121.82 5

Mara Mara Taldearen

Hizkuntza Zerbitzuak, S.L

€1,317,174.22 6

Bakun Itzulpen Eta

Argitalpen Zerbitzuak, S.L.

€456,257.36 2

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Interpretación,SL

€8,429,352.51 33

Oflingua S.L €1,489,922.61 4

Serveis Lingüístics,SL €854,000.00 1

Studio Moretto Group, SRL €597,254.09 14

Automatic Trans S.L €215,169.51 6




Interpretación,SL

€5,141,648.74 19

Oflingua S.L €2,672,511.74 17

Linguaserve

Internacionalización de

Servicios, S.A

€2,107.173.33 13

Traductores e Intérpretes,

S. A.

€1,460,643.45 4

ABD Asociación Bienestar

y Desarrollo

€1,060,387.10 1

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Translation Contracts and Language

Out of Spain’s 5 official languages, the source language that was translated from the

most across four years was Spanish (Castellano), with 553 contracts and notices

requesting translations from Spanish . The second language translated from the most

was Catalan, with 434 contracts and notices requesting the language.

Preliminary, the most requested foreign target language for translations was English,

with 206 located contracts and notices including English translation. The second most

foreign language translated into was French, with a total of 104 translation contracts

and notices requesting the language. Notably, a total of 608 contacts and notices did

not specify a target language or were labelled ‘foreign’ translations.

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Translation Contract Breakdown by Sector

Figs. 13- 20 illustrate the contract expenditure by sector in 2015-2018, based on the

findings from the Report Database for Spain. The list of sectors used can be found

under the Data Extrapolation section of this report, these have been classified using

Eurovoc, the EU’s multilingual thesaurus.

The following data outlines the sectors that contracted translation services, it focuses

on awarded contracts for public sector tenders between 2015-2018. The pie charts

(Figs. 13, 15, 17, 19) depict the percentage expenditure of each sector by year, and the

tables (Figs. 14, 16, 18, 20) list the amount of translation contracts per sector, along

with their total expenditure based on the summed net award fee of translation

contracts by year. The data on translation contracts below is based solely on

translation contracts (including interpretation services), framework agreements

comprising of various types services as well as translation services have been excluded

from the calculations.

It must be noted that sectors that were not specified in the description of the contracts

were labelled N.S on the Report Database, these have been omitted from the tables

below. Similarly, not all sectors were found to employ translation services each year,

accounting for the omission of some sectors in particular years on the tables below.

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Overview of Translation Contracts by Sector 2015

Fig.139

In 2015, out of 397 awarded translation contracts, 53 were contracted by central

purchasing bodies (level 1), 333 were contracted by autonomous or provincial public

bodies (level 2), 11 by local administrations (level 3).

9 The smallest percentages in the pie chart are shown in their accompanying tables.

Legal 25%

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Contracts falling under the classification tag Social Questions comprised the most

translation contracts, with a total of 124 contracted services. Contracts tagged under

Social Questions related to social issues such as health, culture and religion, migration

etc. This sector was followed by Education and Communications, with a total of 100

contracts for translation services.

The sector with the highest ranking expenditure for translation contracts based on net

award fee pertains to contracts tagged under the sector Law, totalling €29,122,265.18

Contracts tagged under Law include contacts for the police, criminal and civil law.

Fig. 14 shows the expenditure in 2015 based on contract net award fee for sectors

classified under the Eurovoc vocabulary. Unidentified notices have been included.

Fig. 14 Net worth by sector 2015

Domain Net Worth Contracts

Agriculture, Forestry and

Fisheries €128,013.44 8

Business and Competition €16,539.00 5 Economics €188,655.21 7 Education and

Communications €857,983.61 99

Employment and Working

Conditions €172,173.87 8

Environment €137,162.79 18 European Union €85,000.00 1 Finance €702,210.80 13 Geography €1,014,989.21 8 Industry €216,454.10 2 International Relations €49,568.78 1 Law €29,122,265.18 57 Politics €762,789.22 21 Production Technology and

Research €317,957.86 3

Science €50,075.00 2 Social Questions €1,303,218.24 123

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Trade €1,661.43 1 Transport €688,099.40 13


Fig. 15




Education and Communication contracts comprised the most translation contracts in

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2016, with a total of 97 contracts awarded under this tag. Contracts for Education and

Communication include contracts that involve documentation (dissemination),

education policy, general education etc. This sector was followed by translation

contracts classified under the tag Social Questions, with a total of 41 awarded

contracts.

The sector with the highest ranking expenditure for translation contracts based on net

award fee pertains to contracts tagged under the sector Law, totalling €4,511,172.12.

It must be noted that the highest amount of contracts does not necessarily indicate

the greatest expenditure. We are able to assume, based on the data displayed in the

table below, that although Education and Communication held 99 contracts for

translation services in 2016, these totalled only €744,588.71. Moreover, If we compare

Education and Communication contracts with those tagged under Transport, we are

able to see that with only 17 contracts, total expenditure was €584,873.00. This gives

us a valuable indication of the market size for translation contracts and their worth

per sector in a particular year.

Fig.16 shows the expenditure in 2016 based on contract net award fee for sectors


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Fig.16 Net worth by sector 2016



Fisheries €128,013.44 8

Business and Competition €16,539.00 5 Economics €188,655.21 7 Education and

Communications €857,983.61 99

Employment and Working

Conditions €172,173.87 8

Environment €137,162.79 18 European Union €85,000.00 1 Finance €702,210.80 13 Geography €1,014,989.21 8 Industry €216,454.10 2 International Relations €49,568.78 1 Law €29,122,265.18 57 Politics €762,789.22 21 Production Technology and

Research €317,957.86 3

Science €50,075.00 2 Social Questions €1,303,218.24 123 Trade €1,661.43 1 Transport €688,099.40 13

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Fig. 17




Translation contracts tagged under Social Questions comprised the most translation

contracts in 2017, with a total of 55 contracts awarded under this tag. This was

followed by translation contracts under Politics, comprising a total of 25 awarded

contracts.

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The sector with the highest ranking expenditure for translation contracts in 2017 was

Law, contracts under this tag totalled €8,439,093.19





Agri-foodstuffs €126,016.52 1


Fisheries

€60,000.00 1

Business and

Competition

€30,497.71 1

Economics €30,080.88 2

Education and

Communications

€1,860.997.26 18

Employment and

Working Conditions

€809,775.26 8

Energy €68,118.56 10

Environment €3,340.09 2

European Union €33,815.27 5

Finance €539,450.04 5

Industry €472,199.11 17

Law €8,439,093.19 22

Politics €368,925.45 24

Science €189,000.00 2

Social Question €1,607,367.31 55

Transport €695,021.51 22

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Fig.19

For 2018, out of 231 awarded translation contracts, 83 were contracted by central



Education and Communications contracts comprised the most translation contracts in

2018, with a total of 85 contracts awarded under this tag. This was followed by

translation contracts classified under Industry, most of these being contracts related

to tourism; a total of 57 contracts were awarded here.

The sector with the highest ranking expenditure for translation contracts in 2018 was

the sector labelled Law. The total expenditure for this sector was €7,558,087.58

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Fig. 20 shows the expenditure in contract net award fee for the sectors found in the

study for 2018




Fisheries

€74,049.59 2

Business and

Competition

€49,299.60 4

Economics €90,000.00 1

Education and

Communications

€1,332,750.57 85

Employment and

Working Conditions

€293,490.30 7

Energy €27,500.00 8

European Union €3,376.28 2

Finance €866,773.62 5

Industry €1,055,984.88 57

International

Organisations

€17,999.00 1

International Relations €143,163.56 6

Law €7,558,087.58 17

Politics €1,786,740.42 12

Social Questions €1,237,928.91 15

Trade €26,100.70 1

Transport €20,561.25 6

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Comments

Framework agreements below €10,000.00 that included other services along with translation

services were not included within the Report Database. These translation contracts were

identified particularly at local levels.

We estimate that translation contracts below €10,000.00 are carried out by public

administrations internally, meaning that there is an amount of unaccounted for translation

services that could benefit from NEC TM. 10

Given that the research at Level 3 was limited to the main cities within each province, it would

be expected that the projection for Level 3 expenditure should be higher than the actual

average as smaller cities and towns are not assumed to generate more translation contract

data than the capital of each province.

However, owing to uneven distribution of resources, such as local tourist attractions, high

concentrations of translation contracts were sometimes found in municipal administrations

that did not form part of the province capitals, one example being the town of Benidorm,

which spent €35,000.00 on one translation contract in 201811. We assume to find that there

are several other tourist-heavy towns in Valencia such as Benidorm. Due to this we account

10 Currently, our research has not yet included the cost of in-house translation services at

different administration levels in Spain. NAP will help us locate the cost from government

and tax office expenditure transparency websites.

11https://contrataciondelestado.es/wps/wcm/connect/45cf9fa7-79af-4dd8-b985-

5ccdff5ca3b4/DOC_FORM2018-205083.html?MOD=AJPERES

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for a margin of error in the estimation of Level 3 total expenditure, as well as acknowledge

that local translation services exist that would benefit from NEC TM but have not been

accounted for. We can estimate a percentage value of around 5-8% the gross of the national

level being spent by Spanish municipalities that are not capitals of a province.

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Conclusion

From the data extrapolated we can conclude that throughout the four years studied, 301

awarded contracts were tagged under Education and Communications, making this sector

the highest contractor of translation services. This was followed by the sector tagged Social

Questions, with a total of 235 contracts awarded across 2015-2018.

The sector that spent the most on translation services was the sector labelled Law. Contracts

in this sector totalled close to €50 million across 2015-2018. Tender bid and award fees for

translation contracts in this sector were higher than any other sector across 2015-2018.

Notably, these contracts were usually lengthier on average than contracts in other sectors.

The sector that followed Law was termed Social Questions, the total expenditure of such

awarded contracts was close to €7 million across four years.

The supplier that was awarded the most translation and interpretation contracts was

Seprotec, Traducción e Interpreración, SL, with a total of 102 contracts across four years,

followed by Ofilingua, S.L, which was awarded 55.

With a total number of 2,012 awarded contracts located, (excluding open notices and

dissolved contracts), 193 of these included interpretation services. 18 of these were

framework agreements that included other services such as layout and design along with

translation. The total expenditure across 2015-2018 for translation, interpretation and

framework agreements was close €81 million.

By extracting interpretation services and framework agreements from the total expenditure

across 2015-2018, we conclude that close to €44 million was spent on translation services in

Spain.

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