month in review

UK public procurement in August 2021

5,594 UK public sector tenders and contract awards were published in August 2021 by 1,143 buying organisations, 30% down on July 2021. 5.4% of those with a recorded route to market were awarded directly, without competition.

notices

5,594

buyers

1,143

named a winner

4,316

awarded directly

5.4%

median value

£120,001

most active buyers

who won most

biggest changes on July 2021

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 2021	August 2021	change
Surrey County Council	185	332	+147
Suffolk County Council	39	180	+141
FCDO Services	167	32	-135
London Borough of Haringey	259	128	-131
National Highways	172	49	-123
Royal Borough of Greenwich - managed by GS Plus Ltd	4	107	+103
Ministry of Defence	203	106	-97
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office	127	36	-91
British Transport Police	81	4	-77
London Borough of Lewisham	10	85	+75

what was bought

the biggest awarded contracts of August 2021

contract	buyer	won by	value
Single Use PPE and Medical Protective Consumables	NHS Supply Chain	3M United Kingdom PLC +75	£5,000,000,000
Food & Drink	Crown Commercial Service	named in the notice	£1,800,000,000
Private Sector Development Partner for the South West Territory	Scottish Futures Trust Limited	hub South West Scotland Limited	£1,500,000,000
Private Sector Development Partner for the North Territory	Scottish Futures Trust Limited	hub North Scotland Ltd	£1,200,000,000
Care in a Residential Setting with or without Nursing (IRN)	ESSEX COUNTY COUNCIL	Abbot Care Centre Limited +21	£1,000,000,000
Managed Equipment & Clinical Service Solutions	NHS Supply Chain	4 Ways Healthcare Limited +68	£859,630,000
Phase 2 Publication of Routes SEN Aylesbury and surrounding area	Buckinghamshire Council	24x7 Ltd +20	£711,467,768
Town and Country Housing Group - Housing Maintenance Joint Venture	Echelon Consultancy Ltd	Fortem Solutions Limited	£700,000,000
TfL 95800 - TfL Call off from GLA 81400 Contingent Labour	Transport for London	Reed Specialist Recrutment Ltd ,	£480,000,000
SWAN Re-procurement	The Common Services Agency (more commonly known as NHS National Services Scotland) ("NSS")	British Telecommunications plc	£350,000,000

Contracts published in August 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 August 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.