26.7.1 The recommended approach is that as much information in the Contract as possible should be placed in the public domain and only information which is specifically identified as commercially sensitive by the Contractor or identified and justified by the Authority as sensitive for public interest (including national security) reasons should be excluded. The parties should aim to achieve a pragmatic balance between the public sector's interest in transparency and the need for commercial confidentiality.
26.7.2 The Authority should make it clear at the start of a procurement that it is its intention to make the final Contract available to any relevant public sector body (e.g. the NHS Executive) in accordance with the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information (see Section 26.6 (Government Openness)). Access, however, to commercially sensitive information will be restricted in line with the particular confidentiality restrictions within the final Contract.
26.7.3 After short-listing, the Authority should negotiate with bidders as early as possible to define the scope of the information to be treated as commercially sensitive. The Authority should also agree with bidders when commercially sensitive matters will become non-sensitive to ensure maximum disclosure. Contracts should be structured to facilitate easy removal of commercially sensitive elements.
26.7.4 The focus for whether information should be agreed to be "commercially sensitive" should be of disclosure causing real prejudice to the interests (legal and/or commercial) of the parties.