The Cabinet Office has today published Part I of its consultation on secondary legislation required to implement the new public procurement regime established by the Procurement Bill. This part refers predominantly to areas of the Bill which require lists, calculations or further definitions to be used in practice and covers the following subjects:

- Scope of light touch regime contracts and reservable light touch services;

- Exempt contracts: Vertical and horizontal activities calculations;

- Exempt contracts: Utilities intra-group turnover calculations;

- Utility turnover and supply tests; 

- Intra-UK procurement; 

- Definitions of ‘central government authority’ and ‘works’ for thresholds;

- Disapplication of section 17 of the Local Government Act 1988; and

- Disapplication in regard to NHS procurement.

The consultation asks 18 questions which seek to understand to what extent the draft secondary legislation provisions implement the policy intent as established in the Bill and will be scored on a scale from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’. The consultation is open until 28 July so do make your views known on these important issues. Part II is due to be issued in July. We will be submitting a response to both consultations so please get in touch if you would like to discuss any aspects at all.