month in review

UK public procurement in December 2016

2,120 UK public sector tenders and contract awards were published in December 2016 by 661 buying organisations, 93% down on November 2016. 3.6% of those with a recorded route to market were awarded directly, without competition.

notices

2,120

buyers

661

named a winner

1,245

awarded directly

3.6%

median value

£100,000

most active buyers

who won most

biggest changes on November 2016

Change in the number of notices published, against the month before. Measured as an absolute change and shown only where it is at least ten notices — a buyer going from one notice to four is a 300% rise and means nothing.

buyer	November 2016	December 2016	change
Crown Commercial Service	1,360	50	-1,310
Ministry of Defence	896	32	-864
The University Of Nottingham	803	4	-799
Highways Agency	690	30	-660
University of the West of England	555	0	-555
Transport for London	568	17	-551
Defra	554	18	-536
Newcastle University	509	1	-508
Department for Transport	498	8	-490
UK Shared Business Services Limited	513	37	-476

what was bought

the biggest awarded contracts of December 2016

contract	buyer	won by	value
Schools , Community Buildings and refurbishment Works	LHC	Aura Newcastle Ltd +18	£5,500,000,000
CP1044-15 Contracts for the provision of Devon County Council's, Somerset County Council's and Plymouth City Council's Highways Maintenance Services.	Devon County Council	Skanska Construction UK Ltd +1	£825,000,000
Major Construction Works for North Eastern Universities	North eastern Universities Purchasing consortium	BAM Construction Limited +5	£750,000,000
Healthy Start Vitamin Children's Drops	NHS SUPPLY CHAIN	Cuttlefish Limited	£438,000,000
Supply of Fuel to Singapore	Ministry of Defence, Land Equipment, Defence Fuels and Food Services (DF&FS)	BP Singapore Pte Limited	£279,284,000
Supply of Fuel to Singapore	MINISTRY OF DEFENCE	BP Singapore Pte Limited	£279,264,000
General Wound Care Lots 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 10 11 12 14 15 16 17 and 18	NHS SUPPLY CHAIN	"3M United Kingdom Public Limited Company +45	£223,300,000
NHS Business Services Authority - NHS Supply Chain Future Operating Model - Category Towers Procurement Services (Tranche 2)	DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH	AKESO & COMPANY LIMITED +6	£190,000,000
Healthy Start Vitamins Women's Tablets	NHS SUPPLY CHAIN	Brunel Healthcare Manufacturing Limited	£162,000,000
For Transparency only - RAF Marham (ANVIL) Non-FOA - Work Package E (AOS, AGL & OCU)	MINISTRY OF DEFENCE	Galliford Try/Lagan Construction JV	£150,000,000

Contracts published in December 2016 that name a winning supplier, ranked by the value the buyer published, excluding those flagged as a maximum rather than a price. Figures are as published; gvtcx does not adjust them. A large contract is often a multi-year framework, so the value is what may be spent over its whole life — and where several suppliers share one framework, each is shown against the framework's full value rather than its own share.

how this was counted

Notices published in December 2016 across Contracts Finder, Find a Tender, Public Contracts Scotland and Sell2Wales, under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Counts are of contracting processes, not published notices: a tender and its award notice are one contract and are counted once.

There is no total value on this page, deliberately. Published values repeat a framework's entire ceiling against every supplier on it, so a month containing one large framework would read as a spending spike that never happened. The median excludes anything flagged as a ceiling, and the reasoning is set out in full here. Where a total IS defensible — contracts awarded to a single supplier, with no framework — it is on the direct awards page.

A month stays open to revision: publishers backdate, so figures for the current month and the one before it may still move.