Tendering For Care

There is some confusion over whether or not a purchaser MUST tender for particular services contracts. The position is as follows:

The European Directive, 2004/18/EC, and subsequently the UK Public Contracts Regulations (2006) set out a clear set of requirements for purchasers. However, both sets of legislation allow a "light touch" approach to the procurement of certain services. These are known as Part B services. Part B tenders must comply with the regulations in that they must be "adequately advertised", must include a technical specification, and feedback must be available.

Underpinning the legislation are the requirements of the Treaties of Maastricht and Lisbon. Here Articles 81 and 82 are relevant. The Treaties and UK competition law require that nothing be done which in any way prevents, restricts or distorts competition. 

Therefore, although a contract may be for services which fall under Part B of procurement legislation, it is likely that it will be caught by the Treaty requirements and thus tendering for the services to be purchased becomes necessary. Government accepted the recommendation of the Glover Report, published in November 2008 which include that all tenders for contracts valued at £20,000 and above should be advertised electronically  by 2010, and that tenders should be electronic (no "paper only" tenders) by 2012

Identifying Part B Services

Many people are aware that health, education and social care are categorized as Part B services. This heading includes a wide range of other services such as gambling and casinos, ice breaking and making films for propaganda purposes. By using the following system it is possible to identify which services are included under the Part B heading, and therefore the light touch procurement system applies.

With effect from 16th September 2008 all tender notices published in the OJEU have been identified by referencing a new set of CPV codes. These are the standard codes used across all the EU to identify the goods and services to be purchased in the procurement process. The codes are important  as they are used to identify "Part B" services, that is to say those services which the public purchaser may procure without the need to comply fully with the Public Contracts Regulations 2006. 

Start by downloading the document reached through the link below titled "CPV Codes 2008". The schedule which starts on page 4 provides the full list of the new codes. For the identification of Part B codes printing out of the whole list is not necessary. In order to save paper just those which start with the number 4 and onwards will include all of the Part B codes.

An Amending Regulation has been published which changes that part of the Public Contract Regulations which lists the codes which relate to Part B service. It is a fairly common view that these services are ill defined. They are actually well defined in this document.

 Download the document from the link below "PCR amendment 2008".

This document amends Schedule 3 to the Public Contracts Regulations 2006. Go to Schedule 2 of the NEW document which starts on page 7. This lists the CPV codes for Part A services. On page 9 the list starts for the codes for Part B services. Print out the codes for Part B services.

By matching the CODES for Part B services from the PCR amendment list, with the titles of the codes from the CPV Codes 2008 list it is a straightforward job to identify exactly which services are Part B, and therefore to which the Public Contract Regulations do NOT apply in full. However, even for the purchase of Part B services, competition law applies and the procurement process must be open, transparent and not prevent, hinder or distort competition.