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 to support procurements by government bodies for complex and high-risk services contracts with a value in excess of £20m. The terms provide a baseline set of terms and conditions to be tailored for specific deals or projects but also provide a helpful arbiter for normal contracting practices and widely accepted terms across government.
This uplift of the Model Contract and its schedules is a welcome change to the baseline contract to introduce more robust provisions regarding data protection, sustainability, social value and to remove references to legislation that are now outdated (e.g. Brexit and GDPR). There are also some key changes to the structuring of the agreement; including a wholesale re-numbering of the schedules and moving certain provisions out of the front end of the agreement into a Schedule (for example IPR) which enables authorities greater flexibility in assessing the menu of clauses offered to govern the specifics of a project or deal.
Further, the update has seen the inclusion of “missing” clauses covering the supplier’s compliance with Whistleblowing, Modern Slavery, Employment Law, and Conflicts of Interest, areas where we have been often working with government entities to include provisions to address these gaps.
The DLA Piper Government contracting team are reviewing in detail the changes with more analysis and workshops/seminars to follow. If you are interested in taking part of would like further information please do not hesitate to contact your usual DLA Piper contact.
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