Malta – Five-Fold Increase in Value of Original Tender
Aug 16, 2018
A direct order worth €274 million for the 10-year management of a new facility at Malta’s St Vincent de Paul Residence for the elderly appears to be in breach of both local and EU public procurement laws, reports Times Malta. Malta is an EU Member State and bound by EU public procurement rules....
HS2 Beset By More Procurement Problems
Aug 16, 2018
Britain’s high speed railway project, HS2, which aims to link London, Birmingham, the East Midlands, Leeds and Manchester to over 30 million people has been beset with criticisms. Now Spanish manufacturer Talgo has begun legal action after what it claims was a “botched procurement” process....
Virgin Care Health Services Award Sends Council Back to the Procurement Process
Aug 16, 2018
Lancashire County Council in northwest England will re-evaluate its tendering process for public health services following a challenge from both Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust and Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust over the procurement process which awarded the contract for...
Hungarian Hospitals and Clinics Criticised Over Lack of Procurement Process
Aug 16, 2018
In an interview Hungary’s head of the State Audit Office has said that several hospitals and clinics did not make regular inventories, purchase equipment and supplies without public procurement contracts and have accounting practices which were chaotic and misleading. The president of the SAO...
Council Scraps Energy Firm Costing £2.5m of Public Money
Aug 16, 2018
Portsmouth City Council, UK south-coast local authority, will scrap its controversial energy firm in a move that will lose at least £2.5m of public money. The council said the decision was taken as the wholly-owned company, Victory Energy, “would have needed millions” of pounds of taxpayers’...
DoD Micro-Purchase Threshold Will Increase to $10,000
Aug 16, 2018
The Department of Defense’s micro-purchase threshold will double, from $5,000 to $10,000, under the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act.
The increase in the DoD micro-purchase threshold will put the DoD on par with civilian agencies after Congress increased the civilian micro-purchase...
Public Spend Forum’s Public Procurement Weekly Roundup
Aug 10, 2018
A government spending spree is expected over final weeks of fiscal year, Oracle filed the first bid protest again JEDI cloud contract, and much more. This is Public Spend Forum’s Weekly Roundup for August 10, 2018.
Federal Agencies Prepare for Massive Spending Spree
Without a budget agreement...
SmallGovCon Week in Review: August 6-10, 2018
Aug 10, 2018
Happy Friday, everybody! It’s that time of year: federal contractors are rushing to submit bids, with the hope of awards before the end of the fiscal year. So we hope that you’re all gearing up for a relaxing weekend.
Let’s get the weekend started off right with the SmallGovCon Week in...
Multi-Million Pound Road Project Faces Procurement Process Legal Challenge
Aug 9, 2018
The Belfast Telegraph reports on the ongoing legal challenges to the procurement process for a multi-million pound roads project in Belfast, in which errors have been found by a senior judge. The project in question is for one of Northern Ireland’s busiest road junctions, and means it will be...
Procurement Fraud Scheme from Hungary Enters Slovakia
Aug 9, 2018
The Slovak Spectator has a run a story on Hungarian firms investigated by the EU’s anti-fraud office trying to do business in Slovakia. ‘Municipalities launched a tender for public lighting but their award conditions were so demanding that in the end one specific firm won almost everything....
US City Receives Procurement Excellence Award
Aug 9, 2018
The US city of Santa Clara has received a prestigious procurement award for the fifth consecutive year. The city has received the achievement for its purchasing policies and practices. The National Procurement Institute has recognised the city with an Achievement of Excellence in Procurement award...
Private Healthcare Companies Securing Plethora of NHS Contracts Investigation
Aug 9, 2018
Unite union, with members including 100,000 NHS staff, are calling for greater transparency over how companies secure NHS work. In particular it wishes to understand better how ‘Virgin and other private healthcare companies have acquired such a plethora of NHS contracts’. Virgin alone has...
Sponsored
Perspectives and Insights
We have some other written articles around the issues of lots and lotting (splitting up their contract requirements into smaller contracts), and …
One major trend over the past twenty years in public procurement has been the greater centralization of procurement activity. Conceptually and practically, collaborative procurement is …
Think you know all about public sector owned professional buying organisations (PBOs) and what they do? Here are ten interesting facts that might just surprise …
Policies and Regulations
A few months back, we published several articles about the very interesting – and somewhat shocking – court case around the UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning …
The Procurement of Innovation Platform aims to make public procurement of innovation a widespread reality in Europe. The Platform has been developed to help public …
Why Evaluation in Public Procurement is Important If the phrase “bid evaluation” makes you cringe, don’t worry: you’re not alone. If …