PFI/PPP

On 7 November 2008, the Public Contracts and Utilities Contracts (Postal Services Amendments) Regulations 2008 were published on the OPSI website.

On 27 August 2008, the Public Contracts and Utilities Contracts (CPV Code Amendments) Regulations 2008 (SI 2008/2256) were published. The Regulations amend the Public Contracts Regulations 2006 (SI 2006/05) and the Utilities Contracts Regulations 2006 (SI 2006/06) (see Legal update, New public procurement regulations published) to reflect the changes to the Public Sector Directive (Directive 2004/18) and Utilities Directive (Directive 2004/17) made by Commission Regulation 213/2008 updating the Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV) (OJ 2008 L74/1; see Legal update, New CPV Regulation published). The CPV is the EU-wide classification system used when tendering for public procurement contracts. It standardises the references used by contracting authorities and entities when describing the subject matter of their contracts. Use of the CPV was made compulsory in the Public Sector and Utilities Directives.

On 10 July 2008, the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) published a review of the public services industry (including the provision by private and third sector enterprises of services to the public on behalf of government or to the government itself). Amongst the conclusions in the review is the finding that compulsory competitive tendering and broader procurement guidance has helped in the development of the public services industry in the UK. Competitive tendering has resulted in cost savings of between 10-30%. The review recommends that government authorities need to reinforce and demonstrate their long-term commitment to opening up public services markets and maintaining effective competition. There must also be competitive neutrality between public, private and third sector bidders and work should be done to reduce bid costs.

The Office of Government Commerce and HM Treasury have published guidance to help public-sector bodies with the competitive dialogue procedure for procuring complex projects. The competitive dialogue procedure is the main public procurement procedure for complex projects in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to which The Public Contracts Regulations 2006 (SI 2006/5) (which transposed EC Directive 2004/18 into domestic law) apply (see Legal update, New public procurement regulations published). It involves contracting authorities undertaking a pre-qualification process and then inviting short-listed candidates to participate in a dialogue process during which aspects of the project may be discussed and solutions developed.Compliance with the guidance is not compulsory but it does contain advice and suggested approaches, based on the experience of those who have used the procedure.The guidance acknowledges that the competitive dialogue procedure imposes significant resource burdens on contracting authorities and can mean that bid costs are higher for authorities and unsuccessful bidders than under the negotiated procedure.

On 23 May 2008, the European Commission announced its plans to co-finance, together with eight EEA member states, a pilot project for the linking of existing national electronic public procurement (e-procurement) systems.

On 3 April 2008, the European Commission announced that it has sent reasoned opinions to Italy and Germany in relation to procurement processes by which they awarded contracts for water/waste management services and waste disposal services to public municipalities.

On 18 December 2007, the European Court of Justice handed down a series of judgments in which it found that Greece, Portugal and Sweden had infringed EC procurement directives.