Jon Trickett – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jon Trickett on 2016-04-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what guidelines he has issued to local authorities to require them to record the proportion of their procurement spent on small and medium-sized businesses.

Mr Marcus Jones

The Government is committed to ensuring there is a simple and consistent approach to procurement across the public sector so that small businesses can gain better and more access to public sector contracts – either directly or as sub-contractors.

The Government produced guidance as part of the reforms included in the Public Contract Regulations 2015 which aim to make public contracts more accessible to businesses and in particular to small and medium enterprises. The reforms included the abolition of pre-qualification questionnaire for low value tenders; simplification of the pre-qualification questionnaire for high value tenders; advertising all local authority contracts of £25,000 or over (or the authority’s standing order limit if higher) on Contracts Finder; and paying down the supplier chain in 30 days.

The Local Government Transparency Code 2015 requires all local authorities to publish details of contracts exceeding £5,000 including information on whether or not the supplier is a small or medium sized enterprise and/or a voluntary or community sector organisation.

However, the Department has made no assessment of the amount or proportion of local government procurement spend going to small and medium sized businesses.