Cabinet Office Guidance on the 2015 Regulations

A week or so into life under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 and we have already several pieces of guidance on the new regime from the Cabinet Office, as follows:

• guidance on complying with the new transparency requirements to publish on Contracts Finder;
• guidance on improving accessibility for SMEs;
• guidance on using forms and notices (e.g. OJEU notices) in the period before SIMAP forms are available for the new regime;
• guidance on selection criteria in PQQs (in promotion of the Lord Young SME agenda); and
• guidance on the new requirement to pay invoices within 30 days and ensure the supply chain does likewise.

In addition the Contracts Finder website was re-launched on 26 February to coincide with the new regulations coming into force. You can find it here https://www.gov.uk/contracts-finder and you may need to update internet links in your internal documents/website.