Publishing central government tender documents, contracts and expenditure

1.20 As part of the transparency agenda, Government has made the following commitments with regard to procurement, contracting and expenditure:

• all new central government tender documents for contracts over £10,000 have been published on a single website since September 20108;

• all new central government contracts over the value of £10,000 to be published on a single website from January 20119;

• new items of central government spending over £25,000 (starting with the April to October 201 0 spend) to be published online from November 201010; and

• all new central government ICT contracts over the value of £10,000 have been published online since July 201011.

1.21 These commitments include all central government PPP projects and expenditure made by central government directly to local authority PPP projects. In some circumstances, limited redactions will be made to some contracts before they are published, in line with the exemptions under the Freedom of Information Act, for example commercially confidential information. It is for departments to decide on a case by case basis whether information should be redacted.

1.22 SoPC4 contracts already allow for the possibility of the public sector publishing the contract. This change means a move to publishing proactively all new contracts, rather than the previous policy of publishing if requested.




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8 http://www.ogc.gov.uk/policy_and_standards_framework_transparency.asp

9 http://www.ogc.gov.uk/documents/Published_Guidance_-_Publication_of_new_central_government_contracts.doc

10 http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/psr_transparency_index.htm

11 http://www.ogc.gov.uk/policy_and_standards_framework_transparency.asp