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Webinar Q&A – Planning and Commencing a Procurement

Webinar 2 – 4 October 2022 – Q&A Can you expand on the ability to change to process in the flexible competitive procedure? Step 16. Clause 31 of the Procurement Bill allows contracting authorities to modify the terms of the procurement. The contracting authority may make unrestricted changes to the procurement before the deadline for: …

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Set menu or smorgasbord: will the Procurement Bill help to streamline planning and commencing procurements?

It is now close to two years since the Government published its green paper to transform public procurement and the headline commitments to make procurement more flexible, streamlined and innovative have now been translated into the detail of the Procurement Bill 2022-23. As we move closer towards the Bill’s planned royal assent in 2023, we …

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The Public Procurement Bill – delegated powers – ‘to delegate, or not to delegate: that is the question’

In previous blogs (see here), we provided an overview of the Procurement Bill (the “Bill“) and the extent to which it will change the public procurement regime in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In this blog, we consider the provisions of the Bill relating to delegated powers.  This may seem like an esoteric subject of …

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A Warning to Contracting Authorities: Beware of the Consequences of Being Unfair to Incumbents

Civil penalties, a reduction of the contract length and an award of damages to the claimant. These remedies send a clear message; all contracting authorities should abide by the laws and principles set out in the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (PCRs), otherwise they run the risk of sizeable financial consequences. In this blog, we delve …

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Webinar Q&A – The Procurement Bill – what is it, why is it here, an overview and initial thoughts on content, structure and its potential impact

Webinar 1 – 27th June 2022 – Q&A Response to questions and comments raised. What are the long-term implications of the current apparent omission of ‘labour’ considerations (e.g. as per current EU) under the ‘Public Good’ principle?’ In today’s ever increasingly ‘tense’ UK employment relations position with current strike actions, are not the Trade Unions …

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Same as it ever was? Has the Procurement Bill seized a once in a lifetime opportunity?

Nearly a month has passed since the government introduced the Procurement Bill 2022-23 to Parliament. The Bill has been heralded as an opportunity to take advantage of the newly found freedoms afforded by Brexit. And – with an annual UK spend of around £300 billion – the prize of making public procurement more streamlined, flexible …

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Transparency, Transparency, Transparency – A summary of the changes to the transparency obligations in the Procurement Bill

In this blog we look in more detail at the proposals for reforms to transparency notices in the Procurement Bill following on from the Government’s Green Paper (Transforming public procurement). The principles of transparency have long been embedded within the public procurement regime, however the importance of contracting authorities complying with these obligations have been …

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Debarment from UK Government contracts – back to the future

In this blog we look in  more detail at the proposals for a debarment list, centrally maintained by the Cabinet Office.  This blog does not consider the related topic of grounds for exclusion, which themselves will be streamlined and modernised from the current regime under Regulation 57 PCR: this is a topic in its own …

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Model Contract: newly launched terms now “live” for usage

The Cabinet Office in conjunction with the Government Legal Department (GLD) has recently launched the new version 2.0 of the Model Contract (formerly the Model Agreement) to capture key changes in the market, legislative updates, changes in policy and learnings of government entities informing best practice. The Model Contract is the government’s long form agreement …

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The Digital, Data and Technology Playbook: Addressing legacy IT, cyber security and digital portability through public sector procurement

The Cabinet Office recently published a new Digital, Data and Technology (“DDaT”) Playbook, and accompanying guidance on Mitigating and Preventing Legacy IT. The Playbook provides guidance on how HMG should assess, procure and deliver DDaT projects, and largely follows the same structure and approach as the Cabinet Office’s Sourcing and Consultancy Paybooks. Usefully, the Paybook …

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Public Procurement Reform – Frequently Asked Questions

On 6 December 2021, the Cabinet Office published the Government’s response to its consultation on the 2020 green paper, “Transforming Public Procurement”. In this post we provide answers to frequently asked questions based on the information provided by the Cabinet Office to date. This blog forms part of a wider series on the Government’s procurement …

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