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Jack Hayward considers outsourcing and employee-led businesses ‘It was refreshing to see that the European Parliament has returned determined to address one of the key preoccupations of the internal market, namely how to encourage more SME involvement in the supply of public sector goods and services.’The coalition’s agenda on the ‘Big Society’ has always included …
Continue reading "Update: Power to the people"
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Dr Totis Kotsonis examines the remedies regime and considers the question of how effective this really is ‘The implementation of Directive 2007/66/EC into UK law, and the further amendment of the procurement legislation, have led to the transformation of the remedies system available for breaches of UK public procurement law.’For a long time, the remedies …
Continue reading "Remedies: All change?"
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Hilary Ross discusses the fining of Marks and Spencers ‘The M&S case shows us that one of the thorniest scenarios is where there is a degree of overlap between the operations of the customer and the supplier. In such cases, it is essential to ensure that all potential issues are identified and each party’s role …
Continue reading "Health And Safety At Work: Not just a fine"
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Tom Collins looks at the impact of the Commercial Agents (Council Directive) Regulations 1993 ‘Fundamentally, it has to be shown that it is in the commercial interests of the principal to have an agent who will expend his own time, money and skill to develop the market.’The Commercial Agents (Council Directive) Regulations 1993 (the Regulations) …
Continue reading "Contract: Secret agents"
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In the first of a regular feature, Jack Hayward takes a sideways look at the highs and lows of procurement practice ‘Until we see the draft regulations we can only speculate as to how the government proposes to reconcile the desire to promote local interest with the Public Procurement Regulations 2006.’In the late 1990s I …
Continue reading "Procurement: Taking the high road"
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Richard Auton assesses the potential impact of staff mutuals ‘Assuming that the public service mutual will want to be paid by the public body for delivering the service, the arrangement is likely to be a “contract… for consideration… under which a contracting authority engages a person to provide services”. In other words it would be …
Continue reading "Mutuals: Power to the people"
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Peter Elliott reviews call-off contracts in framework agreements ‘Where simply applying the terms laid down in the framework agreement, it should be clear from the framework how one establishes who to award to.’The public sector in the UK makes very extensive use of framework agreements. All the signs are that this trend will continue and …
Continue reading "Contracting: The cost of competition"
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Rhiannon Holtham gives an overview of the 2006 Regulations ‘Any organisation embarking on a procurement process that is subject to the Public Contracts Regulations 2006 must comply with the principles of the EC Treaty.’This article provides an introduction to the Public Contracts Regulations 2006 (the Regulations) and summarises the four main procurement procedures that a …
Continue reading "Procedure: Procurement: the essentials"
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Anna McCaffrey and Neil Maclean examine the relationship between TUPE and outsourcing ‘TUPE now expressly covers outsourcing arrangements and goes beyond what was required to implement the revised Directive 2001/23 EC. Thus, unusually, the protections enjoyed by employees in the UK are more extensive than those enjoyed by employees in most of the rest of …
Continue reading "Employment: Hands for hire"
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Steve Thomas and Hazel Grant consider recent developments in cloud computing ‘The key to ensuring that service levels for cloud services are appropriate to a customer’s business is in choosing the correct service; after all, if the standard service levels are appropriate, there is no need to negotiate them.’With the continued rise of cloud computing …
Continue reading "IT: Cloud busting"
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