Procurement Bill and Transparency: New Consultation
In January VWV gave a presentation to the LLG | LLG Procurement National Lead Meeting on Transparency and the new publication requirements under the Procurement Bill.
The Procurement Reform Team (Team) have recently published further details on the content of the transparency notices as part of a consultation exercise Part 2 Consultation on draft regulations to implement the Procurement Bill - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
For the public sector there are 12 notices which cover the lifecycle of a procurement process and the subsequent contract, starting with a Planned Procurement Notice, giving advance notice of an upcoming procurement, to a Contract Termination Notice.
New Notices
We have set out some observations:
- Local authorities who anticipate awarding contracts with a value of £2 million and above over an 18 months period (which will apply to most) will be required to issue a pipeline notice setting out the nature of the proposed contracts, expected dates for publication of the opportunity and contract delivery dates. This will require upfront planning.
- Standstill letters will be replaced by Assessment Summary notices. As well as the disclosure of scores for each award criterion, contracting authorities will need to explain to an unsuccessful bidder the reasons why it did not achieve a higher score against the award criterion and provide it with a redacted version of the successful bidders' assessment summary. To manage the administrative burden this is likely to place on contracting authorities, authorities should consider revising their evaluation templates to meet the new requirements and issue draft guidance on what information should be treated as confidential. Unlike the current position under which standstill letters trigger the standstill period, the standstill period will not commence under the Procurement Act (Act) until the Contract Award Notice has been published. The rather confusingly named "Contract Award Notice" is in fact a notice of an intention to award a contract setting out details of the identity of the successful supplier, the expected end date of the standstill period and a new requirement to list all of the unsuccessful suppliers. The risk is that this could deter suppliers from bidding.
- Under the Act, contracting authorities will need to publish in advance Transparency notices of planned direct awards and Contract Change notices of proposed contract changes. As part of planning for the Act, local authorities should review their contracts and consider if extensions and variations can be made in the next 12 months.
Planning for the Procurement Act
The consultation also provides useful guidance on the transitional provisions. The Team have adopted the same approach as when the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (PCR) came into force - that procurements started under the PCR, including frameworks and dynamic purchasing systems, will continue to be governed by the old regime.
Although implementation of the Act has now been pushed back until October 2024, there is lots for local authorities to take on board and to start planning for.
The deadline for comments to the consultation is Friday 25 August 2023.
Stephanie Rickard
Partner
07384 251896
srickard@vwv.co.uk
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