month in review

UK public procurement in May 2018

3,420 UK public sector tenders and contract awards were published in May 2018 by 843 buying organisations, 11% up on April 2018. 5.5% of those with a recorded route to market were awarded directly, without competition.

notices

3,420

buyers

843

named a winner

2,182

awarded directly

5.5%

median value

£100,000

most active buyers

who won most

biggest changes on April 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	April 2018	May 2018	change
Newcastle University	6	69	+63
Department for Work and Pensions	75	12	-63
Bristol City Council	81	34	-47
Darlington Borough Council	51	12	-39
Her Majestys Land Registry	2	39	+37
Birmingham City Council	17	52	+35
National Highways	25	58	+33
Valuation Office Agency	30	0	-30
FCDO Services	29	0	-29
Nottingham Trent University	30	2	-28

what was bought

the biggest awarded contracts of May 2018

contract	buyer	won by	value
COM1281 - Northern Estate Programme: Main Works Contracting Partner - AWARD	Parliament UK	Wates Construction Ltd	£650,000,000
NEPO508 Vendor Neutral Managed Service for Temporary Agency Workers	Association Of North East Councils	Geometric Results International	£580,000,000
YPO - 000879 FM Services - Building in Use Support Services	YPO	Atlas FM Limited +1	£500,000,000
Wider Public Sector Legal Services	Crown Commercial Service	N/A	£320,000,000
Adult Community Health Services (NHS Herts Valleys CCG)	NHS ARDEN AND GREATER EAST MIDLANDS COMMISSIONING SUPPORT UNIT	Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust	£202,780,000
Housing Maintenance and Repairs Contract for the London Borough of Waltham Forest	London Borough of Waltham Forest	Morgan Sindall Property Services	£195,276,000
Provision of Genito-Urinary Medicine (GUM) & Sexual Health Reproductive Health (SRH) Services	capitalEsourcing	Chelsea and Westminster HNS Foundation Trust	£182,000,000
Smart Motorways Programme - M6 J21a-26 Delivery Partner	Highways England	Costain	£156,395,777
Provision of whole aircraft charter for the transportation of military and government cargo and personnel worldwide	Ministry of Defence, Land Equipment, Other	ACC Aviation Ltd +5	£151,270,000
Provision of an ERP Programme	Yorkshire and Humber Police Procurement (Y&HPP)	N/A	£100,000,000

Contracts published in May 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 May 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.