Despite the three election debates, none of us are any the wiser precisely how the next Government will cut expenditure in order to pay off the financial deficit. We know that change is (hopefully) coming that will reduce the size of ‘Big Government’ and while change often brings threats, it also brings opportunities.
UK Party Leaders
Continue reading “Public contracts after the General Election”
Is it your job to find that golden opportunity hidden amongst hundreds of vaguely related tender notices? How many tenders do you dismiss on title alone? Well, you might just be missing some valuable business opportunities.
If you’re looking for new markets and have stumbled upon the public sector option – do not be misled into thinking it will be exactly the same as selling to a private sector client.
The private sector purchaser can largely suit themselves when it comes to what they buy, who they buy from and how much they pay. But the public sector purchaser has a lot of different factors to take into consideration, not least that they are spending public money and have to comply with set processes and legislation.
Recommendations first outlined in the Glover Report to help small businesses identify contract opportunities are now coming to fruition.
The Glover Report – Accelerating the SME Economic Engine states…
“Tendering opportunities thought especially suitable for SMEs or consortia of SMEs should be flagged by the procurer during the advertising process.”
Although this idea has been around for a while, the OGC have recently published a paper entitled Small supplier big opportunity, Flagging your contracts to SMEs which follows on from the Glover Report’s recommendations and outlines the procedure to be adopted by purchasers in highlighting suitable opportunities for SMEs.
Information technology and business are becoming inextricably interwoven. I don’t think anybody can talk meaningfully about one without talking about the other.
Bill Gates
Today’s technology is high-speed and merciless; if you miss even one of the latest trends, you’ve practically fallen off the face of the earth. As purchasers move more and more into eProcurement and eTendering, are the suppliers, particularly SME’s feeling left behind?
Do not let eTendering pass you by! Keep reading and have a quick look at my checklist to help you with future eTenders… MORE
PQQs (Pre-Qualification Questionnaires) are issued by awarding authorities, as part of a restricted procedure, in order to short-list suitable suppliers before inviting them to tender. Suppliers are assessed according to pre-set criteria based around financial position, ability to deliver, quality standards, and the company’s policies on health and safety, sustainability and equal opportunities.
Gordon Brown & Herman van Rompuy
In yet another sign of the growing political significance of public procurement the UK Government today published a compact designed to reinvigorate EU economies and build “strong, sustainable and balanced” growth. Gordon Brown met EU President Herman van Rompuy at Downing Street this morning to discuss the economic strategy, as well as climate change, security and the situation in Haiti.
I’m a bit late with this blog post, what with Christmas and New Year and then all the snow, but better late than never.
On January 1st 2010 new financial thresholds, which govern whether or not a contract must be published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU), came into force. There’s often a lot of confusion about these thresholds, so I’ll try and explain a bit of the background as well as the actual values of the new thresholds.
Continue reading “Financial thresholds for contracts published in the Official Journal (OJEU)”
As most people start their Christmas holidays this week, or for those suffering from post-Christmas party sore heads, we will keep the procurement topics light and cheery. I have taken a typical Tenders Direct Christmas and replaced as many words as I could with CPV codes. Have a guess at what you think they might be! The answers and some festive Tender Notices are after the jump.
Tenders Direct has sent the 22321000 with lovely 22411000 and trimmed our 39298910 with glimmering 31522000. The 15981320 is falling, the 18315000 are hung, and the 44423100 are ringing. Nigella herself won’t have seen a better looking 15112120 with a side of 03222315 and yummy 03221440 we smother the whole lot in 15893300. With full bellies, we put our 18318300 on and leave 15511000 and 15821200 out for St. Nic and some 03221112 for Rudolph. Off to our 39143110 to dream of 15831000 03222334 and wait for our 18530000. We awake to hear St. Nic on our 44112400 and soon to make his way down the 45262610. In the morning, we were overjoyed to find everything we had asked for and more, 37532000, 37480000, 38650000, 37821000, and a few 18315000 full of 09111100, I wonder who those belong to…?
Harsh medicine?
On Sunday the Remedies Directive (2007/66/EC) was implemented in UK legislation. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) had drafted ‘The Public Contracts (Amendment) Regulations 2009’ (SI 2009/2992). While in Scotland the Scottish Procurement Directorate (SPD) had drafted The Public Contracts and Utilities Contracts (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2009 (SSI 2009/428). Although both sets of regulations are implementing the same European Directive there are some significant differences in the detail, although in this article I’ll only concentrate on the main effects.
Andrew
Anisha Patel
David Law
Fiona Stevenson
Kim Postlethwaite
Noel Vassallo
tendersdirectuk