To use this agreement you will need approval from your organisation and Cabinet Office. Commercial spend controls apply to all commercial activity with a value of £10 million or more, excluding VAT.
Some organisations have a higher spend threshold for commercial controls. To confirm the spend threshold for your organisation you will need to contact the Commercial Continuous Improvement Team.
As a minimum, the commercial spend controls should apply at Outline Business Case, which usually takes place before formally engaging with the market. Spend controls might also apply at full business case, which is usually the contract award recommendation stage.
Before undertaking any competitive process, we recommend taking part in extensive pre-market engagement. This will help to refine your needs and minimise procurement risk.
There are three ways to buy from this agreement. These are:
- further competition
- further competition with dialogue
- direct award
For further competitions you can also use an expression of interest (EOI).
EOIs allow you to share your needs with agreement suppliers to understand the level of interest. You do not need to invite any suppliers to the main tender who do not respond or decline their interest. Or, you can run a competition with all agreement suppliers, without including an EOI stage.
Before running a further competition or direct award, you will need to complete the following documents:
- call-off schedules
- joint schedules
You can find the call-off schedules and joint schedules individually listed in the documents section below.
We advise you to follow your own internal processes and seek your own legal advice when selecting which optional schedules are relevant to your specific needs.
You can find more information about the different buying options in the customer guidance.
You can use your own eSourcing system to run your procurement, or you can use our eSourcing tool. If this is your first time using our eSourcing suite, you will need to register an account.
If you have already registered, sign in to your eSourcing account.
Read guidance on the eSourcing tool
Further competition
To run a further competition under this agreement you should ensure you familiarise yourself with the further competition procedure as set out in framework schedule 7. As an overview, you should:
- take part in pre-market engagement with suppliers to help you define your needs (optional but recommended)
- identify your needs and develop your specification (make sure your specification is detailed and includes timescales)
- complete your further competition documents, such as:
- attachment 1: about the further competition
- attachment 2: how to bid and evaluation criteria
- attachment 3: statement of requirements (specification)
- attachment 4: cost model
- attachment 5: order form and terms and conditions
- issue further competition including deadline for tender submission
- this can be done by email or through your preferred e-Sourcing tool
- evaluate supplier responses, making sure that you evaluate all suppliers equally and fairly
- award your contract by signing framework schedule 6: order form
- provide unsuccessful suppliers with written feedback on why their tenders were unsuccessful using the unsuccessful supplier letter
- publish your contract on contracts finder for transparency purposes
Direct award
To direct award under this agreement you should ensure you familiarise yourself with the direct award procedure set out in framework schedule 7. As an overview, you should:
- clearly define your needs by developing your specification
- develop your direct award criteria
- evaluate supplier proposals against the direct award criteria
- award your contract by signing framework schedule 6: order form
- publish your contract on Contracts Finder
Direct awards will be priced based on maximum agreement rates. You should consider whether you can get better value for money through an accelerated competition before awarding a direct award.
For more detailed information, read our customer guidance document. Or you can contact the category team. They will be able to provide ‘on the shoulder’ support to help you with your needs.
