Tag: council contracts

How do I find government contracts?

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The public sector is made up of numerous organisations run by the government – this includes local councils, emergency services, armed forces and the NHS. Each of these organisations relies on the private sector to supply them with a wide range of goods, works and services, and on average spends over £290 billion on procurement each year.

To ensure there is a competitive marketplace, contracts must be published publicly, and be accessible to any supplier. This means whenever a public body has a procurement need, they have to advertise the contract online using any of the numerous publishing platforms (also known as advertising portals) available to them – details of these can be found at the end of this post.

The Problem with Finding Tenders

You could try and search for notices yourself using the websites above, but due to the sheer number of sources, especially for low-value notices, it would take a significant amount of effort to find suitable notices.

Even if you did find notices this way, they might not actually be as relevant as you had hoped. This is because of CPV codes. There is a CPV (Common Procurement Vocabulary) code for every product or service, and while buyers should use them to let suppliers know what they are looking for, many notices are coded incorrectly. This means they won’t appear in searches and you could miss out on these opportunities.

However, Tenders Direct allows you to avoid these issues by sourcing and reviewing every UK and ROI notice, then making them available to you in one accurate and easy to search database.

Tenders Direct – How does it work? 

We are able to provide full coverage of every tender published in the UK and ROI thanks to our team of Sourcing Specialists, who scour every source to find every tender published. Our Classification Specialists then review each of these notices for accuracy, and re-classify them according to product, service and industry. This Peer Review Process not only ensures you have access to every tender published; it also eliminates irrelevance so you only ever see notices that match your search criteria.

To help you stay ahead of the competition and have more time to prepare your bids, our tender alert service eliminates the need for manual searches by notifying you as soon as relevant opportunities are published. Our Client Experience Managers work with you to learn about your business, identify your needs, and develop your unique alert profile – ensuring you receive notifications tailored specifically to your requirements.

With a Tenders Direct subscription, we guarantee you will never miss a tender. Visit our website for more information about our services, or call our New Business Executives on 0800 222 9009 to discuss your needs.

How Tenders Direct works
Discover how Tenders Direct can help you find and win public contracts.

See for yourself
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Tender Publishing Platforms UK 

Contracts Finder - for English contracts worth over £10,000 with the government and its agencies. 

Public Contracts Scotland – for all Scottish public procurement. 

Sell2Wales – for all Welsh public procurement.

eSourcing NI – for all public procurement in Northern Ireland.

Tenders Electronic Daily (TED) – for high-value tenders published in European Union countries.

Find a Tender – for all high-value notices published across the UK.

Public Buyer Specific – low-value tenders, which make up the majority of all public contracts, can be published on the buyer’s own website or through a third party service such as myTenders – meaning there are hundreds of sites used to publish notices. 

These posts may also be of interest

Why work with
the public sector? 
Our article looks at 6 reasons why you should do business with the Public Sector.

Differences between
the private and public sector 
This infographic looks at the different procurement processes.

What is
a public sector tender? 
An explanation of how tenders work and the different procedures they can use.  

Request a tailored
Market Overview
Discover what types of opportunities are available for your industry with a free Market Overview report.

Tenders Direct is the UK’s most accurate tender alert service. We are the only service to guarantee that with us – you’ll never miss a tender.

For more information about we can help you find and win more work in the public sector, please visit tendersdirect.co.uk or call us on 0800 222 9009.

6 reasons why you should do business with the Public Sector

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On average the UK Government spends £292 billion a year, more than a third of all public spending, on procuring goods, works and services from external suppliers. This money generates over 50,000 new business opportunities a year for many different industries.  

What is the Public Sector? 


The Public Sector is typically made up of not-for-profit organisations owned by central, national and local governments, for the benefit of their citizens. They cover areas such as defence, education, fire services, healthcare, police and refuse collection. 
 
As the public sector relies on public funding to make decisions, they are required to ensure their financial decisions are made respectfully, encourage free and open competition, achieve best value for money, and ultimately benefit the public. 

Reasons to tender for public sector work

  1. All contracts must be open and accessible – meaning no matter what size your business is, if you meet the criteria and can deliver the tender requirements, you have a fair chance of winning the work. This is different to private procurement where the buyer can choose who to inform of their procurement needs, and who to do business with.    
  1. The public sector wants to award work to SMEs – by 2022 the UK Government wants 33% of all public contracts to awarded to SMEs. SMEs make up 99% of all UK businesses and are vital for the economy.  
  1. 30 day payment period – all invoices for contracted work must be processed by public bodies within 30 days of receiving them, ensuring businesses get paid promptly. Lengthy payment periods can be an issue within the private sector, where larger businesses can dictate when they issue payment. 
  1. Transparent Tendering process – nothing is hidden in public procurement, decisions made are transparent, and suppliers will receive feedback if they did not win a contract. Private buyers do not have to make their processes public, and have no obligations to provide feedback to suppliers.  
  1. Most Economically Advantageous Tenders (MEAT) – is the chosen method of proposal assessment, meaning contract awards are not just based on price, and consider the wider aspects of tender submissions. Social Value is a major consideration in contract awards, and with the Procurement Policy Note – Taking Account of Social Value in the Award of Central Government Contracts, five key themes have been highlighted for central government contracts: COVID-19 recovery, tackling economic inequality, fighting climate change, equal opportunity, and wellbeing. 
  1. Continuously improving processes – to make bidding for work easier and less time consuming, the public sector continually work to improve their processes. Single Procurement Documents are a great example – where these are used, only the winning bidder needs to provide the required documents, saving you significant time and effort. 

Finding public Sector Work 

The public sector offers a reliable source of new business.   
 
From stationary to infrastructure and everything in between, the public sector needs suppliers like you. All notices must be publicly accessible online no matter the size, for any supplier to view and bid for.   
  
There are thousands of portals through which public bodies can publish their notices and you can spend a significant amount of time and effort trying to locate opportunities relevant to your business. Thankfully, Tenders Direct eliminates your need to search for tenders by collating every UK and ROI notice in one place, and alerting you to those relevant to your business.   
  
Tender Direct guarantees you will never miss a public sector notice.  
  
Request a demo today and discover all the opportunities you could be bidding for.  

Public Sector Round-Up 11.09.20

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In the news this week: £9.3m invested in council EV schemes, £12bn boost for affordable homes, and two e-scooter trials launched in York and West Midlands.
Our top OJEU notices for the week feature a diverse £30m NHS contract for hospitality, cleaning and administration services, a £6m contract for refuse collection vehicles and a £3.6m award for telematics services.
The top Prior information Notice of the week is a £1.2bn framework for the maintenance, repair and calibration of medical equipment.

UK tenders update

840

603

237

Total UK NoticesLow-Value NoticesOJEU Notices
Tender notices published in the UK between 04.09.20 & 11.09.20

Top OJEU contract award notices

Title: United Kingdom-London: Hotel, restaurant and retail trade services
Short description: To provide a range of services including: cleaning, catering, portering, security, pest control, window cleaning, linen and laundry, clinical and domestic waste and helpdesk to Homerton University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.
Published By: Homerton University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Date Published: 08 September 2020
Framework/DPS: No
Value excluding VAT: £30,029,484.00
Number of tenders received: 1
Contractors: ISS Mediclean Ltd
View full award notice with your Tenders Direct login HERE

Title: United Kingdom-London: Telematics services
Short description: Contract award notice for the supply and installation of an integrated road vehicle telematics and dashboard camera system with associated services.
Published By: Network Rail Infrastructure Ltd
Date Published: 09 September 2020
Framework/DPS: Yes
Value excluding VAT: £3,683,220.00
Number of tenders received, lot 1: 5
Number of tenders received, lot 2: 2
Number of tenders received, lot 3: 2
Number of tenders received, lot 4: 3
Number of tenders received, lot 5: 6
Contractors: Masternaut Ltd | Company Watch Ltd |Condeco Ltd | Repstor Ltd | Resolve Systems LLC
View full award notice with your Tenders Direct login HERE

Title: United Kingdom-Bournemouth: Refuse-collection vehicles
Short description: The contract provides for the following:• 18 tonne RCV — diesel fuelled,• 26 tonne RCV — diesel fuelled,• 26 tonne RCV — zero emission (i.e. electric (EV) or hydrogen).
Published by: Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council
Date Published: 09 September 2020
Framework/DPS: No
Value excluding VAT: £6,028,113.00
Number of tenders received: 3
Contractors: Dennis Eagle Ltd
View full award notice with your Tenders Direct login HERE

In the news this week

Highways England invest £9.3m in council’s EV schemes
Highways England announced £9.3m this week to help businesses adopt electric vehicles. The fund allows local authorities to give businesses a 2 month trial of electric vehicles. The money for this comes from Highways England’s Designated Funds programme, which will invest around a billion pounds between 2020 and 2025 to benefit the public, economy and planet. With more and more focus on electric vehicles, funding towards similar EV projects (see e-scooter trials below) and charging points for them will become increasingly popular.

Jenrick unveils huge £12 billion boost for affordable homes
A massive investment of £12bn in affordable housing was announced this week, the largest single funding commitment to affordable housing in a decade. The programme will be delivered between 2021 to 2026, providing up to 180,000 new homes across England. Building homes is a priority for the government, and consideration has been made to ensure smaller developers access finance for new housing developments by boosting the Home Building Fund with an additional £450 million of investment.

Two major e-scooter trials launched in York and West Midlands
The public in York and the West Midlands have been given access to e-scooters this week as two e-scooter trials begin. The contract for the scooters belongs to Voi (a Swedish company) which has initially supplied a few hundred scooters, but over 10,000 are expected to be deployed during the trial – the results of which could create more opportunities in other regions for similar projects.

Stand out prior information notices

£1.2bn framework for the maintenance, repair and calibration of medical equipment
Maintenance Renewal PIN 2020 NHS Supply Chain seeks to establish a non-exclusive framework agreement for the supply to the NHS Supply chain customer base for the maintenance, repair and calibration of medical equipment. The purpose of this notice is to draw attention to a procurement that NHS Supply Chain intends to commence during the subsequent 12 months. The invitation to tender will be the subject of a separate notice and it is that notice to which potential suppliers will need to respond at the appropriate time.
View full prior information for free HERE


If you have questions, we have the answers.
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Tenders Direct is the UK’s most accurate tender alert service. We are the only service to guarantee that with us – you’ll never miss a tender.
Visit www.tendersdirect.co.uk to find out more.

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