Part 6 of the Procurement Act 2023 (the Act) replaces the requirements set out in Part 4 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 to publish below threshold opportunities and awards on Contracts Finder, with a requirement to publish on the Central Digital Platform (Find a Tender). The threshold of £30,000 including VAT for local authorities has been retained under the Act. 

The Local Government Transparency Code 2015 (the Code) also requires local authorities to publish similar, but not identical, information about their procurement activities for all procurements over a lower threshold of £5,000.

Local authorities may choose to publish new invitations to tender and contracts covered by the Code (i.e. those over £5,000 but less than £30,000) on the Central Digital Platform. Local authorities are not required to adopt this approach, but it is recommended in order to streamline publication of tender and contract data.

In choosing to adopt this option, authorities may consider their duty under the Local Government Transparency Code to have been discharged in respect of the specific provisions relating to the advertisement of tenders and publication of awarded contract information only. For the avoidance of doubt this does not serve to discharge an authority’s duty in respect of any other aspects of the Code.

Local authorities who wish to take advantage of this process should provide a statement on their website, directing interested suppliers to the Central Digital Platform (CDP) which is available at https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Search 

This new procedure will be available from commencement of the Procurement Act on 24 February 2025.

Further advice is provided below.

Invitations to tender

The Local Government Transparency Code requires details of every invitation to tender for contracts to provide goods and/or services with a value that exceeds £5,000 to be published on the contracting authority’s own websites quarterly. Where a contract is advertised, it also has to be published on Contracts Finder.

Recommended approach

Local authorities may use a tender notice (below threshold) to advertise their Invitations to Tender above £5,000 on the Central Digital Platform instead of advertising on Contracts Finder and publishing the information on their own website. 

For new non-competitive procurements (e.g. where a contracting authority has sought quotations from suppliers directly), or procurements awarded under framework agreements, authorities should not publish a tender notice but may provide visibility of the subsequent award by publishing a contract details notice (below threshold) for that contract (see below).

There is no facility to publish historical tender information on the platform on a quarterly basis. If required, historical data should still be published on the authority’s own website.

Tendering procedure

Local authorities applying this guidance to contracts less than £30,000^{[footnote 1]} do so on a voluntary basis and are not legally bound by the procedure for below threshold contracts set out in section 85 of the Act (and which is described in the guidance on below threshold contracts). This is because they are not notifiable below threshold contracts. However, authorities should ensure that their procurement approach is proportionate to the value of the contract.

Contracts

The Local Government Transparency Code requires the publication of details of any contract, commissioned activity, purchase order, framework agreement and any other legally enforceable agreement with a value that exceeds £5,000.

Recommended approach

Local authorities may publish a contract details notice (below threshold) for awarded contracts over £5,000 on the Central Digital Platform. Where the details relate to other forms of commercial agreement that fall outside of the scope of public procurement, (where the publication of a contract details notice is not practical), these should continue to be published on local authority websites separately.

Content of notices

Local authorities will find that they will not be able to publish the notices unless all of the information required by the Procurement Regulations (regulations 24 and 36) are included in the notice. This does mean that authorities will be publishing more information than the Code requires. In order to meet the requirements of the Local Government Transparency Code, authorities should also complete optional fields such as procurement reference, and contract start and end dates in the relevant notice. 

Specific information required by the code

Review date - this is the date that the contract is to be reviewed, if at all. It can be included in the description field as part of the contract subject matter or in the information covering any options to extend or renew the contract.

VAT - The Code requires authorities to publish the amount of VAT that cannot be recovered for each item, where applicable and possible to identify at contract stage. We recognise that in practice it can be challenging to determine irrecoverable VAT at the point of agreeing the contract. The Procurement Act requires values to be provided inclusive of VAT. This is a mandatory field. The Central Digital Platform has an optional field for an exclusive of VAT figure and we suggest local authorities complete this in order to meet the requirements of the Transparency Code. This exclusive of VAT figure should be exclusive of recoverable VAT (where known) or otherwise exclusive of VAT (whether recoverable or not).

Procurement covered by the Procurement Act

Where procurements are covered by either section 87 (i.e. notifiable below threshold contracts £30,000 and above) or are covered procurements as defined in section 1 of the Procurement Act, the Act will apply and, by following the transparency requirements of the relevant provisions set out in the Act, local authorities will be considered to have met the requirements of the Local Government Transparency Code in respect of those contracts provided that the information required by the Code is also included in those notices.

Not in scope of Procurement Act/ Transparency Code alignment

Local authorities should continue to meet all other publication requirements of the Local Government Transparency Code, 2015.