month in review
UK public procurement in August 2020
3,379 UK public sector tenders and contract awards were published in August 2020 by 899 buying organisations, 11% down on July 2020. 7.3% of those with a recorded route to market were awarded directly, without competition.
most active buyers
- Suffolk Sourcing146
- FCDO Services90
- Gloucestershire County Council81
- UK Shared Business Services Limited62
- London Borough of Enfield50
- Newcastle University50
- UK Research and Innovation49
- Defra Network eTendering Portal48
- National Highways41
- SE Shared Services41
who won most
- Prestige Domestic Property Maintenance21
- First Stop Travel EA limited13
- Wilkin Chapman LLP13
- Fast Cabs Ipswich LTD11
- CDW Limited10
- LA International Computer Consultants Ltd10
- AECOM Limited9
- Tim's Transport Ltd.9
- XMA Limited9
- Cascade Joint Venture8
biggest changes on July 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 | July 2020 | August 2020 | change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Somerset Council | 97 | 3 | -94 |
| Gloucestershire County Council | 13 | 81 | +68 |
| Suffolk Sourcing | 83 | 146 | +63 |
| FCDO Services | 39 | 90 | +51 |
| Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council | 54 | 4 | -50 |
| UK Research and Innovation | 10 | 49 | +39 |
| Leeds City Council | 60 | 26 | -34 |
| National Highways | 74 | 41 | -33 |
| London Borough of Enfield | 82 | 50 | -32 |
| Newcastle University | 25 | 50 | +25 |
what was bought
- construction work 501
- business and professional services 371
- transport services 276
- IT services 213
- architecture and engineering 212
- health and social care 180
- research and development 154
- software and information systems 153
- education and training 124
- repair and maintenance 111
the biggest awarded contracts of August 2020
| contract | buyer | won by | value |
|---|---|---|---|
| City Leap Energy Partnership | Bristol City Council | Ameresco +1 | £12,000,000,000 |
| Logistics and Warehousing | Crown Commercial Service | ADARE INTERNATIONAL LIMITED +24 | £2,500,000,000 |
| BBV HS2 MWCC - Surfacing Packages | Balfour Beatty VINCI | Aggregate Industries UK Ltd +1 | £1,000,000,000 |
| GLA 81400 Collaborative Recruitment Services | Transport for London | Reed Specialist Recruitment Ltd. | £925,000,000 |
| SCF 4 Integrated Services Consultancy - AWARD | Hampshire County Council | AECOM Limited +2 | £688,000,000 |
| Supply of CCTV and Access Solutions - Y21004 | Kent County Council (t/a KCS) | Chubb Fire & Security Ltd +13 | £500,000,000 |
| HS2 Limited High Voltage (HV) Power System | HS2 | Siemens Mobility Costain JV | £328,237,077 |
| Glasgow Alliance to end Homelessness | Glasgow City Council | Aspire Housing & Personal Development Services +6 | £187,500,000 |
| 3A_20 Advertising Solutions | Espo | 8hwe Ltd +22 | £150,000,000 |
| LED Lighting, Fixtures and Fittings - Supply and Install _Y19018 | Kent County Council (t/a LASER) | Amble Electrical +23 | £150,000,000 |
Contracts published in August 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 August 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.