month in review

UK public procurement in February 2018

3,859 UK public sector tenders and contract awards were published in February 2018 by 815 buying organisations, 3% down on January 2018. 8.4% of those with a recorded route to market were awarded directly, without competition.

notices

3,859

buyers

815

named a winner

2,709

awarded directly

8.4%

median value

£98,437

most active buyers

who won most

biggest changes on January 2018

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	January 2018	February 2018	change
Home Office	347	14	-333
Ministry of Justice	53	244	+191
Department for Education	180	29	-151
Department for Work and Pensions	15	134	+119
NHS Arden and Greater East Midlands Commissioning Support Unit	122	8	-114
Department of Health	11	85	+74
H M Revenue & Customs	19	92	+73
FCDO Services	0	64	+64
The United Kingdom Hydrographic Office	39	3	-36
Department for Transport	32	64	+32

what was bought

the biggest awarded contracts of February 2018

contract	buyer	won by	value
Public Sector Resourcing Award	Crown Commercial Service	Alexander Mann Solutions Limited	£15,000,000,000
CSC Local Service Provider (LSP) North, Midlands and East Note: Published for completeness, see description for details	Department of Health	CSC Computer Sciences Ltd	£1,890,130,000
NHS Supply Chain Note: Published for completeness, see description for details	Department of Health	DHL Supply Chain Ltd	£1,659,000,000
Pharmaceutical Wholesale Services	East Of England NHS Collaborative Hub	AAH Pharmaceuticals Limited +3	£455,000,000
NHS Northern, Eastern and Western Devon CCG - Community Health & Wellbeing Services for Children and Young People in Devon	NHS SOUTH, CENTRAL AND WEST COMMISSIONING SUPPORT UNIT	LIVEWELL SOUTHWEST CIC +1	£370,000,000
Cambridgeshire County Council Home and Community Support Services	Cambridgeshire County Council	A Class Care +75	£300,000,000
Contract to Provide Custodial Services and Works at HMP Northumberland.	Ministry Of Justice	SODEXO LIMITED	£291,910,529
Prisoner Escort & Custody-Major Contracts-2011-Area 2-Serco	Ministry Of Justice	Serco	£283,342,791
Services Contract-Major Contracts-2011-Provision of Custodial Services for HMP/YOI Doncaster-0508	Ministry Of Justice	Serco	£281,847,815
NICTS 1529-5-ICT-ICT-RA	Ministry Of Justice	Hp Enterprise Services Uk Ltd	£254,662,250

Contracts published in February 2018 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 February 2018 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.