The Prime Minister made specific commitments on transparency in procurement and contracting in his letter of Transparency issued on 29 May 2010. Now the Office of Government Commerce has published the first in a series of Procurement Policy Notes, New Requirements for Greater Transparency in Central Government Procurement to implement those commitments.
The Policy Note sets out three proposed commitments which central government departments will be obliged to comply with, namely:
From 1 July 2010 all new ICT contracts require to be published online.
From September 2010 all new tender documents for contracts with an expected value of more than £10,000 are to be published on a single website free of charge - creating a presumption that, where information is available, it should be published whether or not the procurement is subject to competitive tendering under central government department's internal rules. Ultimately, however, the procurement method and extent of tendering will remain at the department's discretion.
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