These changes will significantly impact on how we carry out supplier engagement and soft market testing.
Supplier engagement can be anything from a telephone conversation about your prospective procurement with the current supplier to a formal event with invited suppliers.
Key change: Preliminary market engagement
Preliminary market engagement involves engaging with suppliers before publishing a formal tender opportunity. Supplier engagement is usually done to develop and refine requirements, and identify potential suppliers. Here are the key details.
The new act will require us to issue a preliminary market engagement notice:
- before engaging with suppliers, a preliminary market engagement notice must be published. This notice ensures that all potential suppliers are aware of our intent to engage the market and can participate equally
- the notice should include details about the intended engagement, such as the scope of the procurement and any relevant timelines
Impact of not issuing a preliminary market engagement notice:
- failure to publish a preliminary market engagement notice can lead to a lack of transparency, giving some suppliers an unfair advantage
Before starting any form of procurement, soft market testing, supplier engagement or conversations, please get advice from the county procurement team. This will ensure that all activities are conducted in accordance with the new guidelines and prevent any unintentional non-compliance.
You may be engaging with suppliers before the act goes live, but if your procurement is after the act goes live in October then we need to ensure we comply with this new requirement.
Anyone involved in procurement should take a look at the government's transforming public procurement information including the short videos available.
Thank you for your co-operation and commitment to upholding these new standards.