The new EU Procurement Directives will be directly applicable to central government, its agencies, non departmental public bodies (NDPBs), wider public sector, local authorities and NHS bodies.
Understanding the impact of the new EU Procurement Directive is imperative. Being prepared to adapt procurement strategies to match the new procedures and processes will save contracting authorities a lot of time and resource in the future.
- Know the effect on transparency. Public authorities will be freed from detailed procurement submissions information on a public authority’s procurement activity. Statistics will be collected directly by the Commission from the online system.
- Prepare for renegotiating the requirement and the risk of incurring a breach of Material Contract Variation. You will have more freedom to negotiate as the negotiated procedure will be less constrained.
- Be aware of the potential for more legal challenges. There will be a penalty for previous poor performance, where a supplier has been guilty of poor performance under a previous contract. You are now explicitly permitted to exclude them from new contracts.
- Pay special attention to ‘sensitive’ or ‘critical’ contracts. With the introduction of a turnover cap – buyers will not be able to set company minimum turnover requirements at more than twice the contract value.
- Plan your transition. eProcurement will become mandatory – electronic communication/eProcurement will become mandatory 30 months after the Directive’s adoption. If you do not have a plan in place, now is the time to develop it.
- Clarify your use of eProcurement. Electronic marketplaces validated – the use of electronic marketplaces for public procurement to be expressly permitted, removing any doubt over their use.