month in review

UK public procurement in March 2018

3,296 UK public sector tenders and contract awards were published in March 2018 by 800 buying organisations, 15% down on February 2018. 6.1% of those with a recorded route to market were awarded directly, without competition.

notices

3,296

buyers

800

named a winner

2,148

awarded directly

6.1%

median value

£100,000

most active buyers

who won most

biggest changes on February 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	February 2018	March 2018	change
Ministry of Justice	244	17	-227
Department for Work and Pensions	134	19	-115
Department of Health	85	9	-76
H M Revenue & Customs	92	26	-66
Nottingham Trent University	4	61	+57
FCDO Services	64	11	-53
Radioactive Waste Management Limited	39	0	-39
University of the West of England	32	0	-32
North Yorkshire Council	8	40	+32
Highways Agency	36	7	-29

what was bought

the biggest awarded contracts of March 2018

contract	buyer	won by	value
PFI Contract Extension VEAT	ST HELENS & KNOWSLEY TEACHING HOSPITALS NHS TRUST	HCP SOCIAL INFRASTRUCTURE (UK) LIMITED	£500,000,000
Financing Solutions	NHS SUPPLY CHAIN	BNP Paribas Leasing Solutions Ltd +12	£500,000,000
DWP Estates Facilities Management	Department for Work and Pensions	Interserve (Facilities Management) Ltd	£341,680,000
Phase One Stations: Design Services Contracts	HS2	Ove Arup & Partners International Limited +1	£221,000,000
CA4686 - Temporary and Permanent Staff	Crescent Purchasing Consortium (CPC)	ADECCO +29	£160,000,000
The Provision of Scholars Bus Routes	Hull City Council	Ellie Rose Travel Limited	£140,000,000
CM124 - YORconsult2	East Riding of Yorkshire	AA Projects Limited +36	£119,500,000
CM124 - YORconsult2	Sheffield City Council	AA PROJECTS LIMITED +40	£119,500,000
Supply, Integration, and Initial Support of an Air Command and Control (AIR C2) System	MINISTRY OF DEFENCE	IBM UNITED KINGDOM LIMITED	£79,528,405
Security Guarding Services	The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)	Interserve (Facilities Management) Ltd	£45,000,000

Contracts published in March 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 March 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.