The new home for government procurement

From 1 January 2021 a new e-notification service called Find a Tender (FTS) will be used to post and view public sector procurement notices and will replace the requirement to publish notices in the Official Journal of the European Union (or OJEU for those who love an acronym).

You’ll still be able to use existing portals such as Contracts Finder, MOD Defence Contracts Online, Public Contracts Scotland, Sell2Wales and eTendersNI to view low value or location specific notices.

Did you know that the OJEU/FTS can be a good source of competitor intel? When a contract is awarded, a Contract Award Notice is published which contains some useful nuggets, such as:

• Number of tenders received (including the number received from SMEs)

• The name of the winning tenderer (including whether they were an SME)

• Value of the successful tender

• Value and proportion of the contract likely to be subcontracted

• Whether the tender was awarded to a consortium/JV.

So keep an eye out and start building a profile of who’s winning what in your market - every little helps!