Those new Public Procurement Thresholds

 Here are those new Threshold values I mentioned earlier.  They apply from 1 January 2026  and will not change for 2 years.

The values are lower in both GBP and EUR, despite global inflation being in the range of 3% to 5% (obviously significantly different in any individual country).  I have to say that I am not sure what is happening here...

The Thresholds are denominated in Special Drawing Rights (SDR) which are based on a basket of currencies including Sterling and EUR (and USD, Yen and Yuan).  So they should not change a lot.  And I cannot see whether the underlying values in SDR have changed, nor why they have not been adapted to take account of inflation.

Anyway, the new (and old) values for the UK are below.

New Public Procurement Thresholds from 1 January 2026

 And they are lower than at moment. (just a bit)

Some people says this means more competition as more contracts will be subject to the threshold and there require competition.

WELL, given that the PA2023 increases the opportunities for avoiding competition the lowering of the threshold is only a marginal step back in the direction of competion.

 

And of course the thresholds are not actually set by the UK government but the WTO GPA.

 

Given the significant inflation over the past few years this is a significant lowering of (most of) the thresholds.  I'll be interested in the response.  I suspect many contracting authorities actually would have preferred a significant increase.

Find a Tender Service (UK public sector tenders)

 The new Find a Tender Service is up and online - you can find it here.  This replaces the OJEU website for tenders with a value above the relevant threshold, i.e. the larger public sector tenders.  Note that any tender process that started on OJEU will be completed on OJEU and follow EU procurement rules.  Just a reminder - the threshold values themselves have not changed this year - the current levels apply for 2020/1.

They appear to be calling it FTS, not FATS (as I rather hoped).  It is not the easiest thing to find, but hopefully will be further up the listings on Google when it is bedded in a bit.

I have registered, and the process is fairly painless (not completely), and it IS linked to Contract Finder  - which makes a lot of sense but was not guaranteed.

Another PPN - UK Public Policy Notice PPN11/20 - Reserving Below Threshold Procurements

 One that I missed but Eddie Regan at BIP Solutions didnt...

We know something of the possible future for UK Public Procurement thanks to the Green Paper.  One element of that is being adopted from 1/1/21 - which is that procurements below the thresholds ;

● Reserve the procurement by supplier location, AND/OR

● Reserve the procurement for Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) / Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprises (VCSEs) -

Thresholds are ;

Supplies & Services - £122,976 

Works - £4,733,252

The second one of these extends the provision in the PCR 2015 for VCSEs to include SMEs and I have few problems with that.  The provisions are currently for central government only, but will surely be extended to Local Authorities who will welcome it.

The first provision though worries me.  In several ways.

Firstly, there is the effect on the Union - this is UK legislation and expressly stops the location being based on the four nations (and procurement is a devolved authority, so Scotland, Wales and particularly Northern Ireland will presumably create their own rules based on the UK ones).  But you can see the problems with Scottish contracts for Scotland, English contracts for England etc.

Secondly, the region should be based on a county.  Now Yorkshire is big.  But Rutland and the Isle of Wight are small.  I can see the sense in restricting IoW contracts to the island.  But Rutland?  Surely there is value to be had in sourcing from Leicestershire or Northamptonshire?  But a political advantage in drawing only from Rutland companies....  (I know nothing about the Rutland apart from the TV comedy programme, so I hope that people there do not think I am suggesting they are particularly likely to have problems.  It just happens to be the smallest county)

Thirdly, the geographical restriction will be loved by councils and councillors who want to spend money in their own constituencies.  There are obvious worries about Value for Money, and of course unethical buying behaviour (much in the news at the moment).

So, I remain to be convinced.