The Pelican Edge
Spring 2021
13
EXPERTISE
PUBLIC PROCUREMENT LEGISLATION UPDATE Kim Nailor, MCIPS Kim Nailor manages Pelican’s Tender Team, who handle Tender Team Manager all aspects of formal food and non-food tendering on behalf of our clients, adhering to the latest public procurement legislation and the highest standards of professional practice. Kim shares a quick low down on the latest changes to the public procurement legislations. EU Procurement Legislation EU legislation no longer applies in the UK with the exception of public procurement contracts that began before the end of transition period 31 December 2020. However there are new regulations that are similar and, in some cases, remain unchanged and apply under UK Procurement Legislation. Some regulations are already in place with more to be reviewed over the coming months, potentially continuing up to September 2021 and beyond. This means there may be continued changes for the foreseeable future so watch out for further updates. Public Contracts Regulations Thresholds Pelican uses government guidelines for all public sector tendering and comply with the current thresholds. The threshold for the tenders that Pelican manages remains unchanged at £189,330 and will not change until 1 January 2022, when future thresholds will be determined by the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) which the UK has been a member of since 1 January 2021. New Contract Notice Service The UK government announced the new service for publishing contract
notices, replacing the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU): “Find a Tender” went live on 1 January 2021. Pelican’s procedure for posting public tenders remains the same, via an online portal: this links through to “Find a Tender” so we’ve had no disruption to our usual procedure.
Procurement Policy Paper Social Value Our Tender Team strives to ensure that they keep up-to-date with legislation when managing tenders and recent changes to social value is a great example. Social value has become increasingly important for our clients and in September 2020 the government introduced
