New UK Procurement regulations - February 2015

The new UK Procurement regulations, enacting last year's EU procurement directive, have now been introduced to parliament and will take effect in England,Wales and Northern Ireland on 26th February 2015 I believe (the document linked to by www.gov.uk still helpfully has the phrase "date to be inserted" where the date should be, so I am not certain).  Scotland will follow later in the year (reminding us once again that Scotland, whilst part of the Union, is a different country with a different legal system).

These new regulations are something we have been discussing for a couple of years, and anticipating in earnest since this time in 2014 when the directive was passed.

There are some significant changes such as new procurement routes (Innovation partnership, competitive procedure with negotiation) and some more minor ones (the process should generally be faster).

If you want to know more then you can read the PDF at this link here, or attend one of the training courses that I have been plugging run by BIP Solutions or the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply where it will be it will be a little bit more digestible.    There is also a government discussion document about the introduction of the new regulations which is available here.

When I have had time to digest the changes, we shall also update our book Excellence in Public Sector Procurement (Emmett & Wright, Cambridge Academic 2011) which naturally will need to take account of the new regulations.  No timescale for that, but not before the summer I expect.