Asked by: Baroness Buscombe (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many contracts managed by the Cabinet Office under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 meet the financial thresholds for key performance indicator reporting set out in section 52 of the Procurement Act 2023 but are exempt from such reporting under the Act's transitional provisions; and what is the total value of those contracts.
Answered by Baroness Twycross - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The guidance on the transitional and saving arrangements, which determine how the changeover from the previous legislation to the Procurement Act 2023 (Act) is managed and effected by contracting authorities. The guidance states that contracting authorities are not required by the Act to set or publish KPIs for contracts that were awarded under the previous legislation, even where those contracts are above the threshold set out in section 52 of the Act.
Asked by: Baroness Buscombe (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many government contracts with a value above £20 million excluding VAT have been re-awarded to incumbent suppliers without a competitive tendering process by central government in each of the last five years; and what is the total value of those contracts in each of those years.
Answered by Baroness Twycross - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
Details of all Government contracts, including the procurement procedure used, are published on the Contracts Finder and Find a Tender services above certain thresholds. Details can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/contracts-finder(opens in a new tab).
In certain limited circumstances, it may be possible for a procuring body to make a direct award of a contract, without going through the competition stages set out in PCR 2015. The specific circumstances where this is permitted are set out in regulation 32 of PCR 2015 and the grounds for using the procedure are limited to those listed in the regulation. They include:
where an open or restricted procedure generates no suitable tenders or no suitable requests to participate
where the works can be supplied only by a particular operator
in an extreme urgency
More information is available at Procurement Policy Note 01/21: Procurement in an Emergency.