3.15 A contract notice must be placed in OJEU for schemes which have a value above the thresholds set out in the Regulations and which are detailed in Appendix 2 of this section of the guidance. It is expected that in general PPP schemes will be advertised using the competitive dialogue procedure, although NHS bodies should always take legal advice first.
3.16 The Competitive Dialogue award procedure is provided for in regulation 18 of the Regulations and was introduced for the award of complex contracts, where a contracting authority is not objectively able to define the technical means capable of satisfying its needs or objectives or to specify either the legal or financial make-up of a project.
3.17 The contract notice can be filled out and submitted electronically on the Notices section of the European Commission's SIMAP website (http://simap.europa.eu/enotice/changeLanguage.do). There is no charge for the inclusion of a notice in the OJEU and notices are generally published within 2 - 5 days of their being submitted online.
3.18 If the NHS body uses other advertisements, for example, in the specialist press or the national media, these adverts must not appear before the OJEU version has been despatched and must not contain any additional information to that contained in the OJEU notice. Any such adverts should refer to the date of the despatch of the advertisement to OJEU. It is also good practice for all schemes to be additionally advertised in Government Opportunities.
3.19 It is important that careful attention is paid to the detailed drafting of the contract notice. The OJEU notice should provide a brief description of the project. If the scope of the project alters, it may be necessary to advertise the altered scheme and to start the whole process again. If the original contract notice is drafted with sufficient flexibility, it may be possible to cater for subsequent change, although a balance must of course be struck with the need to provide potential tenderers with an adequate description of the requirement.
3.20 The contract notice should emphasise that the project is a PPP scheme and that this will mean that the private sector will be expected to bear a significant proportion of risk. It should also give details of the scheme as envisaged and invite expressions of interest from the private sector. The contract notice should state that variant tenders are acceptable. Variant tenders are discussed in Chapter 5 of this section of the guidance.
3.21 When the NHSScotland body uses the competitive dialogue procedure and issues the contract notice electronically a minimum of 30 days must be allowed from the date of despatch of the contract notice to the last date that is allowed for requests (PQQ submissions) to be received. In the event that this 30 day period ends on a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday, it should be extended to expire on the next working day.
3.22 Relevant guidance on issuing an OJEU may be found at the OGC website EU public procurement law in the UK (OGC website) January 2006.
3.23 Note that procurement rules and regulations can change, therefore, NHS bodies should always take professional advice in this area.