Public procurement in the UK is governed by statutory rules, including the Public Contracts Regulations 2015, with which contracting authorities and their suppliers must comply if the contract value hits the necessary thresholds.
However, the ongoing COVID-19 crisis means that contracting authorities and suppliers have to adapt with extreme urgency in relation to the procurement of goods and services, whether it is the urgent need for certain goods or services (such as PPE or IT support) or a sudden requirement for delay or redeployment of others (such as school transport services).
In a welcome attempt to highlight and clarify the flexibility of the statutory rules in place, the UK government (PPN 01/20 and PPN 02/20) and the European Commission (2020/C108 I/01) issued new specific guidance on using the public procurement framework during the COVID-19 crisis in March 2020 and April 2020, respectively.
View the other factsheets available in this series:
