Procurement Policy Note 08/21

Juli Lau and Beth Edwards outline Procurement Policy Note 08/21, recently published by the Cabinet office.

The Cabinet Office recently published PPN 08/21 which lays down requirements for taking a bidder’s approach to payment into account in the procurement of major government contracts.

The PPN applies to In-Scope Organisations (i.e. all Central Government Departments, their Executive Agencies and Non-Departmental Public Bodies) when they procure goods, services or works where the annual contract value is over £5m.

In these circumstances, In-Scope Organisations must include specific questions in the Selection Questionnaire (SQ) to assess the resilience of bidders’ supply chains.

The PPN replaces PPN 07/20 and increases the minimum percentage of invoices bidders must pay within 60 days to receive a “pass” for a particular SQ question.

The specific SQ questions to be used and more detailed guidance on the PPN can be found here. It will apply to procurements advertised on or after 1^st April 2022; until then In-Scope Organisations should continue to apply PPN 07/20.

We advise contracting authorities on all manner of issues relating to public procurement and our experts are on hand to guide authorities through the intricacies of the Regulations and to advise on any other procurement related issues

Juli Lau is Legal Director and Beth Edwards is a Paralegal at Sharpe Pritchard LLP.

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