We held our latest Mills and Reeves in person training on the 9th September at their Cambridge offices, where there was a great turnout among members of the Hub. While the agenda covered a range of areas including a procurement law update, calling off of frameworks and below threshold contracts, my key take aways were:
1. The importance of notices being correct
While it seems obvious that the information contained within notices should be an accurate reflection of the procurement or award, mistakes do often happen. Whether it’s a missed 0, wrong date or completely missing a section of information. Make sure you review what’s in your notices and where anything is wrong or missing ensure you issue a correction. Under section 105(4), relating to set aside conditions a notice that contains missing or incorrect information will be treated as not being published – you want to ensure that this is not the case.
2. Conflict of interest remains a key focus
Conflict of Interest isn’t a new area however under the Procurement Act there is a lot more emphasis on undertaking a conflict of interest process throughout the lifetime of the procurement and contract. You need to ensure you identify and mitigate any possible conflicts and keep a written record of these. It is also important to undertake a conflict of interest assessment prior to tender for incumbent providers, to ensure there is no conflict with them bidding on the new procurement.
3. Direct awards through frameworks still require due diligence
Calling off from a framework without competition (or a framework direct award) is used a lot within the NHS. The Act hasn’t really changed the process that you should follow, other than introducing additional notices that need to be published. However, it is important to note that there does need to be an objective mechanism as to how the supplier is selected and it cannot simply be at your discretion as to who to award to. It’s important to note that just because a framework says you can, it does not mean it is compliant – ensure you do your due diligence.
While not covered on the day, an area we are seeing across both the Procurement Act and the Provider Selection Regime (PSR) is the importance of maintaining accurate evaluation and moderation records. Ensure the person moderating is experienced, impartial and able to carry out the moderation process effectively. Scores and rationale should be linked directly to the published evaluation criteria rather than personal opinion. Organisations must also be able to demonstrate why scores changed during moderation, rather than simply recording that they did. Good record keeping remains critical throughout the procurement process.
As a reminder, organisations have until the end of September to publish their payment compliance notice.
Contact us
If you have questions about the topics covered in this training session, or would like support with an upcoming procurement, we’d be happy to help.
Contact the Hub to discuss your requirements and find out more about our procurement support services: [email protected]