The Pelican’s Procurement, Tender and Sales teams undertook a Public Procurement Law Reforms training to fully understand all the new changes that are being proposed and how best we can support our clients and prospects in the public sector.
Kim Goodchild, Pelican’s Tender Team Manager shares the lowdown on the latest Procurement Reform – including where we are today and where we’re going.
Upcoming proposed legislation & regulations
- Current regulations to be merged into one consolidated set of Regulations; currently there are around 350 across 4 different sets of regulations (some of which are duplicated) so this will make it easier and clearer for procurement teams.
- New Principles of Procurement: Some principles will not change like Non-Discrimination and Transparency, but Equality of Treatment will change to Fair Treatment of Suppliers. New Principles are Value for Money, Public Good (where appropriate), and Integrity (i.e. non-collusion, no fraud).
- National Procurement Policy Statement: Already published and there to push key points: establish environmental and ethical procurement; help SME’s businesses; address net zero carbon within Social Value considerations.
- Changes to procurement procedures: Open Procedure remains much the same. The Competitive Flexible Procedure replaces a number of other procedures and is less rigid. The Limited Tender Procedure will be used for situations of crisis.
- Changes to Framework Agreements and Dynamic Purchasing System. Closed Framework for 4 years (as currently applies) and Open Framework for longer number of years (possibly 7/8 years). Dynamic Purchasing System will not have massive changes.
- Additional publishing requirements: Amendments to any contracts will have to be published. There will be a requirement for more detail and transparency through the tender process.
- Central Digital Platform: Proposed as a central point for buyers (procurement teams) and suppliers to have sight of i.e. a supplier’s performance and any legal challenges; however, there is still a lot to understand about this proposed platform and nothing has been decided regarding the amount of information to be shared and who can see it.
- Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS): Many organisations are already engaged with OCDS. Standards for this single set of terminology and formats will mean if providers don’t comply, they will not be able to appear on the Central Digital Platform.
- Publishing of Procurement Pipelines: For spend above £200m.
- Single Supplier Registration: Suppliers will input information in one place and will keep their information up to date, but it’s unclear at the moment who will be able to see this information.
- Changes to legal challenge process: Suggestion is that there will be skilled judges to interpret challenges and speed up the process. Also, they’re looking at capping damage.
What you need to do to follow and comply with the latest changes:
Assess the procurement skills within your procurement team
Ensure your team have the right capability and capacity
Begin to consider what economic, social and/or environmental benefits can be delivered through current and future contracts
Develop clear models for the evaluation of social and environmental benefits
Build a clear pipeline of future procurement activity
Begin to consider what changes will be required to current procurement strategies and documentation
Have open discussions around the necessary changes with regards to the Central Digital Platform for tendering
Develop a process to ensure greater transparency is embedded across the contracting authority, not just procurement
Begin to develop a training programme for procurement teams to keep them up to date with the latest changes
The following is a timeline outlining what the UK Government has done so far since Brexit:
15 December 2020. Green Paper ‘Transforming Public Procurement’ launched
10 March 2021. Green Paper consultation period ended
3 June 2021. Publication of the UK Governments National Procurement Policy Statement
15 June 2021. Commercial Pipeline Guidance published
24 June 2021. Cabinet Office publish new guidance on Transparency, requiring all Central Latest Government departments, Agencies and
30 September 2021. All companies bidding for government contracts worth more than £5 million a year must commit to achieving Net Zero emissions by 2050 – this applies to all Central Government departments, Agencies and NDPBs (non- departmental public bodies)
8 October 2021. Cabinet Office update suggests the timetable for legislative change will be 2023 at the earliest
1 April 2022. Contracting authorities with an annual spend of £200m or more are required to publish procurement pipelines for contracts over £10m (Cabinet Office) or £2m (all other relevant bodies). Then, from 1st April 2023 – Contracting authorities with an annual spend of £100m or more are required to publish procurement pipelines for contracts over £2m.
We are here to help.
If you need advice or support with regards to Public Tendering Legislation, please contact our team on 01252 705214 or hello@pelicanprocurement.co.uk
