month in review

UK public procurement in March 2020

3,591 UK public sector tenders and contract awards were published in March 2020 by 921 buying organisations, 18% down on February 2020. 6.6% of those with a recorded route to market were awarded directly, without competition.

notices

3,591

buyers

921

named a winner

2,478

awarded directly

6.6%

median value

£92,741

most active buyers

who won most

biggest changes on February 2020

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 2020	March 2020	change
Derby City Council	154	8	-146
FCDO Services	1	55	+54
Quadrant Construction Services Limited	7	48	+41
Forestry and Land Scotland	54	24	-30
Home Office	43	17	-26
Newcastle University	5	30	+25
Suffolk Sourcing	61	36	-25
Leeds City Council	66	91	+25
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office	38	14	-24
Ministry of Defence	68	45	-23

what was bought

the biggest awarded contracts of March 2020

contract	buyer	won by	value
G-Cloud 12	Crown Commercial Service	named in the notice	£2,500,000,000
Interventional Radiology Consumable Products	The Common Services Agency (more commonly known as NHS National Services Scotland) ("NSS")	Abbott Medical U.K. Ltd +25	£663,000,000
Windows & Doors - Supply, Installation & Maintenance Contract - Extension	Procurement for Housing Ltd (t/a PfH Scotland)	Anglian Building Products +6	£500,000,000
Mental Health Supported Living Service - South	London Borough of Camden	St Mungo Community Housing Association	£472,083,300
Non-Invasive Ventilation, Sleep Therapy (CPAP) and Sleep Monitoring (Diagnostics)	NHS SUPPLY CHAIN	Air Liquide Healthcare Limited +28	£216,000,000
Multifunctional Devices, Managed Print and Content Services and Records and Information Management - Lot 4	Crown Commercial Service	Please refer to attached list of successful supplier's	£190,000,000
YPO - 001005 Solar Panels	YPO	Advanced Renewable Power Ltd +4	£150,000,000
220_20 De-icing salt & associated products	ESPO	Brine Solutions Ltd +11	£125,000,000
Multifunctional Devices, Managed Print and Content Services and Records and Information Management - Lot 3	Crown Commercial Service	Please refer to attached list of successful supplier's	£125,000,000
Combined Arms Tactical Trainer	MINISTRY OF DEFENCE	LOCKHEED MARTIN UK LIMITED	£120,000,000

Contracts published in March 2020 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 2020 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.