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

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 …

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Transforming Public Procurement – an update on potential reforms

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 …

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Build Back Better: how Government purchases is as crucial as what it chooses to invest in

The 2020 party conference season will perhaps be even more remarkable than last year’s. Twelve months ago, delegates took their seats against a backdrop of party infighting and prorogation. Fast forward one year and the conference halls are empty whilst Brexit may not even make it to the top of the agenda. This autumn, politicians …

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Applied Game Theory – the future of IT procurement? Looking at it through a government lens

DLA Piper’s Technology and Strategic Sourcing team recently completed a c. £275 m transformative networks and telephony deal for one of the UK’s largest financial institutions, which used an innovative negotiation method known as ‘applied game theory’ in order to carry out the final negotiation stage of the procurement process. The resultant outcome was a …

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The 2019 rail franchising litigation – procurement: Legal privilege and a duty to give sufficient reasons

As we noted in our first article, on 17 June 2020 Mr Justice Stuart-Smith handed down judgment in the 2019 Rail Franchising Litigation, one of the largest and most complex procurement and commercial judicial review claims litigated to date in the UK. DLA Piper acted for the Secretary of State for Transport (the “SoS”) and …

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Be Aware UK: Furloughed employees to receive redundancy and notice pay at full not furloughed rate

The Government has published the Employment Rights Act 1996 (Coronavirus, Calculation of a Week’s Pay) Regulations 2020 which come into force on 31 July. The Regulations ensure that employees who have been furloughed receive statutory redundancy pay, statutory notice pay, unfair dismissal compensation and certain other statutory payments based on their normal wages, rather than …

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Be Aware UK: Job Retention Bonus – New guidance just released

The Government has today (31 July 2020) published a policy paper setting out more detailed guidance on the Job Retention Bonus announced as part of the ‘Plan for Jobs’ on 8 July. The Job Retention Bonus is intended to provide additional support to employers who keep on their furloughed employees after the Coronavirus Job Retention …

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