month in review

UK public procurement in January 2021

5,204 UK public sector tenders and contract awards were published in January 2021 by 1,198 buying organisations, 20% up on December 2020. 6.6% of those with a recorded route to market were awarded directly, without competition.

notices

5,204

buyers

1,198

named a winner

3,901

awarded directly

6.6%

median value

£120,000

most active buyers

who won most

biggest changes on December 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	December 2020	January 2021	change
North East Lincolnshire Council	9	148	+139
FCDO Services	91	7	-84
Department for Education	26	90	+64
Home Office	90	27	-63
Cumbria County Council	17	68	+51
Midlands and Lancashire Commissioning Support Unit	0	47	+47
Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC)	32	77	+45
Hampshire County Council	20	61	+41
Cefas	47	7	-40
London Borough of Haringey	1	37	+36

what was bought

the biggest awarded contracts of January 2021

contract	buyer	won by	value
Courier and Specialist Movements	Crown Commercial Service	named in the notice	£2,000,000,000
Home Care including Carers Home Based Respite Services in Staffordshire	Staffordshire County Council	named in the notice	£506,000,000
Supply of Education Management Systems _ Y20024	Kent County Council (ta/KCS)	Arbour Education Partners Ltd +7	£500,000,000
Human Normal Immunoglobulin and Anti-D Immunoglobulin	NHS England	Bio Products Laboratory Ltd +6	£450,000,000
Invitation to Tender - Wyke Community Sports Village (CSV)	Bradford Metropolitan District Council	William Birch & Sons Ltd	£443,500,000
Children's Residential Care and Education Services including Short Breaks	Scotland Excel	BDT Care Solutions Ltd +13	£421,600,000
THE PROVISION OF INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE WITH SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS AND DISABILITIES	Leeds City Council	Acorn Care and Education Limited +12	£360,000,000
Cambridgeshire County Council Home and Community Support Services	Cambridgeshire County Council	24 / 7 Care Providers Ltd +152	£300,000,000
SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Rapid Qualitative Test Kits	Department of Health and Social Care	INNOVA MEDICAL GROUP INC	£225,971,003
Provision of Street Services	London Borough Of Bexley	Countrystyle	£187,500,000

Contracts published in January 2021 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 January 2021 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.