Notification of contract award

Notification to participants
All participants in a tender exercise should be notified as soon as possible of their status at each stage in the tender process. For example, in a two-stage process, applicants not selected to submit tenders and those that are subsequently unsuccessful should be so advised.

Whenever the contract award decision has been made, tenderers must all be advised of the outcome of the tender.  For all above threshold procurements, a mandatory standstill period of at least 10 days must be applied before the contract may be concluded. A voluntary standstill period can be applied for procurements below the relevant threshold.

For procurements above the threshold, when awarding contracts, the communication sent to candidates and tenderers to notify them of the outcome must include specific information as set out by the Regulations.

Example award notices are provided in the Generic Tender Documentation section.

All requests for de-briefing must, apart from where the mandatory standstill period applies, be fulfilled within 15 days of the request.

Notification to the UK
For procurements above the threshold, the contracting authority must publish a contract award notice on Find a Tender Service within 30 days of the award for each contract

The notification for a framework agreement is made on the setting up of the agreement, rather than at each time it is used.

The Find a Tender Service contract award notice must contain the information set out in Part D of Annex 5 to the Public Contracts Directive.

If a PIN has been used as a call for competition and you decide not to award further contracts during the period covered by the PIN, the contract award notice shall contain specification indication to that effect.

Notification on Contracts Finder
In addition for contracting authorities (excluding maintained schools, academies, sixth form colleges and contracting authorities in Wales and Northern Ireland) a contract award notice must be published on Contracts Finder within 90 calendar days of the contract award date (for contracts exceeding £25,000) but not before publication of the Find a Tender Service contract award notice (where applicable).

When a framework agreement is used by a contracting authority, they must publish a contract award notice on Contracts Finder within 90 calendar days after the contract award date (for contracts exceeding £25,000). Note: There is no requirement to publish a contract award notice on Find a Tender Service in these circumstances.

The information to be published on Contracts Finder is:

  1. The name of the contractor;
  2. The date on which the contract was entered into;
  3. The value of the contract; and
  4. For contracts between £25,000 and £181,302, whether the contractor is a SME or VCSE

“SME” – the category of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is made up of enterprises which employ fewer than 250 persons and which have an annual turnover not exceeding EUR 50 million, and/or an annual balance sheet total not exceeding EUR 43 million

“VCSE” – means a non-governmental organisation that is value-driven and which principally reinvests its surpluses to further social, environmental or cultural objectives.

As with all of the contract award notices, the contracting authority may withhold information from publication where its release –

  1. would impede law enforcement or would otherwise be contrary to the public interest;
  2. would prejudice the legitimate commercial interests of a particular economic operator, whether public or private; or
  3. might prejudice fair competition between economic operators.

Contract Award Report
Contracting authorities are required to produce a report after awarding any contract above the relevant threshold, including any above threshold contracts awarded under a framework agreement.

This report must be documented and the documentation kept for 3 years.  The report must contain the information set out in Regulation 84 and made available to the Cabinet Office should it request it.

An example Contract Award Report is available.