UK Government Blog

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 …

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

On 10 May 2022, Prince Charles opened Parliament and delivered the Queen’s Speech, in the first time that the Queen has not delivered the address since 1963. You can read more of the blog written by Paul Hardy and Daniel Jones here.

Procurement Bill The Procurement Bill (announced in the Queen’s Speech) was formally introduced to the House of Lords on 11th May 2022 via the 1st reading stage with a 2nd reading, when members of the House of Lords will debate its key principles being timetabled for 25th May 2022. This Bill is viewed a high …

Public Procurement Reform – Procurement Bill updates Read More »

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 …

Debarment from UK Government contracts – back to the future Read More »

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 …

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

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 …

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

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 …

Public Procurement Reform – Frequently Asked Questions Read More »

Following the ICO’s public consultation, launched in August last year, the final version of the international data transfer agreement (IDTA), as well as the international data transfer addendum to the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses for international data transfers (Addendum), has been laid before Parliament. In this post, we look at the practical implications of the …

International Data Transfer Agreement and Addendum set to come into force Read More »

The introduction of the new investment screening regime will mark a watershed moment for the UK Government’s powers to intervene in corporate transactions. DLA Piper’s podcast series Understanding the UK National Security & Investment Regime guides listeners though what is driving the new regime, how it will operate in practice and its particular impact on …

What is the impact of the UK National Security & Investment Regime on the Public Sector? Read More »

Public procurement reform – ‘Crisis? what crisis’ On 6 December 2021, the Cabinet Office published the Government’s response to its consultation on proposed reforms to English procurement law. In our most recent blog (“Procurement Challenges – the future”), we considered the Government’s proposals to reform the procurement remedies regime. In this blog, we consider an …

Public procurement reform – ‘Crisis? what crisis’ Read More »

Procurement Challenges – the future On 6 December 2021, the Cabinet Office published its response to its consultation on proposals for reform to English procurement law as first described in its 2020 Green Paper “Transforming Public Procurement”. Over the coming weeks, and as we noted in a blog published on 8 December 2021 (“Public procurement …

Procurement Challenges – the future Read More »

On 6 December 2021, the Cabinet Office published its much-anticipated response to its consultation on the 2020 green paper, “Transforming Public Procurement”. Over the next few weeks, DLA Piper will publish a series of posts considering in detail the proposed changes to procurement. In this post, we summarise the response and give our initial views …

Public procurement reform … the times they are a-changin’ Read More »

The Government’s Green Paper, Transforming Public Procurement, published in December 2020, promised a significant shakeup for government procurement. Certainly, industry and public bodies thought so. Together, they made over 600 written submissions to the Cabinet Office.   (You can find DLA Piper’s consultation comments on the reforms here.)   Since the end of the submission deadline in March 2021, there has been …

Transforming Public Procurement – an update on potential reforms Read More »

In our first article we considered the legal lessons to be learned by the public sector from the failed transformational IT project considered by the High Court in the CISGIL v IBM case.  The focus of our analysis was on the terms of the agreement between CISGIL and IBM signed in May 2015 and the …

What can the public sector learn from CISGIL v IBM? Part Two – The Practical Lessons Read More »