The information specification that Article 43 of the Procurement Code requires above 2 million euro

The tender for a fibre backbone between two foothill towns brings eight kilometres of ducting, an equipment room needing climate control, and a small aggregation data centre: the bill of quantities puts the works above 2 million euro. The contractor’s technical office, downloading the tender documents, finds something next to the standard specification it has known for twenty years: a document it has never filled in before, the capitolato informativo, the information specification. It is not optional, and the contracting authority did not invent it — this is the first time anyone in that office has had to produce one by force of law.

Article 43, paragraph by paragraph

Legislative Decree 31 March 2023, no. 36 — the Public Procurement Code — devotes Article 43, in the part on design, to «Metodi e strumenti di gestione informativa digitale delle costruzioni» (Digital information management methods and tools for construction). Paragraph 1, in force since 31 December 2024, sets the threshold and the date together: «A decorrere dal 1° gennaio 2025, le stazioni appaltanti e gli enti concedenti adottano metodi e strumenti di gestione informativa digitale delle costruzioni […] con stima del costo presunto dei lavori di importo superiore a 2 milioni di euro […]» (from 1 January 2025, contracting authorities and concession-granting bodies adopt digital information management methods and tools […] where the estimated cost of the works exceeds 2 million euro […]). For a backbone with ducting and an aggregation data centre, the bill of quantities almost always clears that threshold: it is not a possibility, it is the baseline of the tender.

Below 2 million the authority remains free not to adopt them, but can turn them into leverage through a bonus score, on condition that the option follows Annex I.9. Even a below-threshold contract inherits the same Annex governing one above it. A paragraph 5, which in the original text carried a further cross-reference, is no longer there: «COMMA ABROGATO DAL D.LGS. 31 DICEMBRE 2024, N. 209» (paragraph repealed by Legislative Decree 31 December 2024, no. 209) — the corrective decree to the Code, in force from that same date.

What the specification must contain, under Annex I.9

Annex I.9 — which paragraph 4, letter f), tasks with setting the specification’s minimum content — is a stand-alone act in the Normattiva database, not a paragraph inside the decree. Its Article 1, paragraph 8, lists what it must contain «almeno» (at least) when the contracting authority commissions architecture and engineering services: strategic information requirements, the requirements for producing, managing and archiving information content, a description of the data-sharing environment — ownership, access, confidentiality — and «le specifiche per garantire l’interoperabilità dei sistemi informativi nel tempo» (the specifications to guarantee the interoperability of information systems over time). For a works contract with a detailed design or a design-and-build award — the typical case for a backbone, where the contractor often develops the detailed design itself — paragraph 9 imposes the same document, «coerente con il livello di progettazione posto a base di gara» (consistent with the design level underlying the tender), and requires the contract documents to govern the contractor’s duties on digital information management.

The specification does not stand alone. The contracting authority appoints a manager of the data-sharing environment, at least one manager of digital processes, and an information-flow coordinator under Article 15. The bidder submits an information management bid answering the specification’s requirements; the winning contractor then turns it into the information management plan. These are steps written into the Annex, not site custom: a specification that skips them leaves the tender as exposed on Article 43 as a call for tenders without special qualification requirements would leave whoever actually vets the economic operator exposed.

The open format, a survival clause

Paragraph 3 of Article 43 justifies the obligation, it does not decorate it: the tools «utilizzano piattaforme interoperabili a mezzo di formati aperti non proprietari al fine di non limitare la concorrenza tra i fornitori di tecnologie […]» (use interoperable platforms through open, non-proprietary formats so as not to limit competition among technology providers […]) and to let data move between public administrations and the economic operators involved. Annex I.9 turns that into an operating rule: paragraph 6 requires the tender’s technical specifications to follow Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012, in a precise order — first the mandatory UNI EN or UNI EN ISO standards, then the voluntary UNI ISO ones, finally the national UNI standards. Paragraph 5 closes the loop: the data «sono fruibili secondo formati aperti non proprietari e standardizzati da organismi indipendenti […] in modo da non richiedere l’utilizzo esclusivo di specifiche applicazioni tecnologiche» (must be usable in open, non-proprietary formats standardised by independent bodies […] so as not to require the exclusive use of specific technology applications).

For whoever will operate the network after testing, this is not a matter of principle: it is the difference between owning the model of your own infrastructure and holding a file that only opens inside the software of whoever produced it. A backbone, a data centre and the ducting connecting them stay in service for decades; the software vendor’s licence does not. A specification that skips the paragraph 6 formats hands the network operator a model readable only for as long as that licence stays valid. Paragraph 7 adds a sharper reference: «rilevano le norme internazionali recepite dall’Unione europea della serie UNI EN ISO 19650» (the international standards adopted by the European Union in the UNI EN ISO 19650 series are relevant), while the UNI 11337 series remains a named, non-binding «utile riferimento» (useful reference).

The maintenance work that inherits the obligation

The exemption that looks like a convenient way out closes in the very next line. Paragraph 1 exempts «gli interventi di ordinaria e straordinaria manutenzione» (routine and extraordinary maintenance work), but «a meno che essi non riguardino opere precedentemente eseguite con l’adozione dei suddetti metodi e strumenti di gestione informativa digitale» (unless it concerns works previously carried out through the adoption of those digital information management methods and tools). Whoever works today on a route built in 2025 or later inherits the obligation even for extraordinary maintenance that, on its own, would never reach 2 million. It is a trap in the specification more than in the value: the threshold concerns the new work, not the later intervention — the only way to find out is checking whether the original route had an information specification signed at tender stage.

Testing, and the models as as-built records

Annex I.9 closes the loop at testing. Paragraph 11 requires the contractor to deliver «i modelli informativi aggiornati durante la realizzazione dell’opera e corrispondenti a quanto realizzato […] che attesti il rispetto e l’adempimento di quanto prescritto nel capitolato informativo» (the information models updated during construction and matching what was actually built […] attesting compliance with what the information specification prescribed), and that verifying this sits among the testing body’s own tasks. This is the same moment we have already covered writing about testing and conformity checks under the Code and as-built records and labelling for the fibre register: here the as-built is no longer a drawing to attach, it is a model the testing body must be able to open — not just receive in a format that, outside the vendor who produced it, nobody can read any more.

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What we have not verified

This is not legal advice. We have not verified the penalty regime for failing to adopt the Article 43 methods, nor the alternative threshold under Article 14, paragraph 1, letter a), for protected buildings — irrelevant here, but present in paragraph 1’s text. We have not read Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012, cited by paragraph 6 only for the hierarchy of technical sources, nor the UNI EN ISO 19650 and UNI 11337 standards themselves: paid standards the Annex names without reproducing, which we could not download.

Two threads, on this subject

The information specification that Article 43 and Annex I.9 require above 2 million — or that a tender can request as a bonus score below that threshold — needs paragraph 8’s minimum content, paragraph 5’s open formats, paragraph 6’s technical hierarchy: not a generic clause on compliance with the Code. At acceptance, the check is whether the model handed to the testing body actually opens outside the software that produced it — before settling the last progress payment, not after.

Information specifications, information management plans, as-built models and testing records become, with CSIDIA, the group’s other company, a single map on which an AI checks whether the format delivered is really the one the tender prescribed. Within the client’s perimeter: on-premise or dedicated cloud with a data centre in Italy, always with our own crews, no subcontracting.

A network contract above 2 million euro, or a doubt about which format to require in the information specification? Talk to an engineer: the site visit is free of charge.