Bid Services

Life's a pitch... And then they buy!

Call: +353 (0)1 525 2650   Mail: info@bidservices.ie

  • Home
  • How it Works
  • Services
  • About Us
  • Blog
  • Webinars
  • Contact Us

“Light Touch” Procurement Procedures

1st March 2019 By Bid Services

Background
The recitals to Directives 2014/24/EU and 2014/25/EU set out reasons for excluding certain social, health, educational and other specified services from their full scope and for applying higher thresholds of €750,000 and €1,000,000 respectively before OJEU advertisement of these requirements is mandated.

The Directives go on to specify the services subject to this so-called “Light-Touch Regime” by reference to a listing of CPV (Common Procurement Vocabulary) Codes set out in Annex XIV to the Public Sector Directive and Annex XVII to the Utilities Directive.

The “Light-Touch” Annexes are curious in that they look to have been put together in something of a hurry. Instead of setting out a clear and full listing of the services in question as one would expect in a legal enactment, it includes numerical-only groupings such as “from 85000000-9 to 85323000-9” which requires procurement officials to carry out a cross-reference check against the full CPV Code listing in order to establish what services are in fact covered in that grouping.

There also seems to be a degree of arbitrariness when it comes to the services included in the “Light-Touch” regime. For example, the provision of “security services” is classified as “Light-Touch” and excluded from standard procedures whereas “cleaning services” is not and remains subject to the standard rules. Both these services are increasingly provided and procured together as “facilities management” packages and it is not at all clear why such closely-related economic activities should be subject to very different treatment under public procurement law.

Uptake to Date

It appears from Tenders Electronic Daily that there is a significant appetite for the new procedures with some 170 over-threshold “Light-Touch” procedures advertised on TED from 2015 to date, mostly involving health service requirements in the UK (141 notices), Ireland (26) and Luxembourg (3).

This begs the question as to how the other EU Member States are applying the “Light-Touch” rules, or if they are using them at all?

A review of some of the Notices published on TED also highlights the following:

  • One project for housing services, which expressly claims to be an “Annex XIV procedure” uses CPV codes that are not so designated in the Directive;
  • One notice for “Executive and Legislative Services” is in fact for qualified accountants to act as court-appointed official receivers in corporate bankruptcy matters. As accountancy services are subject to the normal rules, one would have expected the procurement in this case to err on the side of caution and follow standard procedures for accountancy services.
  • Another notice classifies what appears to be a works/fitting-out project as “Health Services” apparently because the works in question are required for a hospital.

This raises the question as to whether anyone is monitoring these notices in the publishing authorities before release.

Issues for Procurement Officials

CPV Codes should always be carefully checked prior to issue of Contract Notices.

Consideration of the “Light-Touch” procedure needs to be carefully checked by cross-reference to the CPV Code. This can give rise to tricky situations where the procurement official will have to exercise careful judgment. For example: a requirement may involve the provision of “event services” with CPV Code 79952000 which is within the scope of the Light-Touch regime but may also involve the hire of audio equipment or other goods/services which have different CPV Codes that are subject to the normal transparency requirements and the lower thresholds. Prudence would suggest that an orthodox approach using standard procedures should be taken in such cases.

The use of CPV Codes is a mandatory legal requirement for all notices published at OJEU/TED level and is a critical element in the effective communication of requirements to the market, and in enabling contracting authorities/entities to meet their transparency obligations. The incorrect use of CPV codes would seem to be a matter of concern to the EU Commission, particularly in the light of the 2017 Cosinex report which cited one study that found incorrect use of CPV codes in 23% of notices analysed. The Cosinex report concluded that CPV errors have an appreciable adverse impact on transparency and the achievement of value for money. It remains to be seen what action the Commission will take in response. In the meantime, procurement officials should exercise care in the use of CPV codes given that incorrect or misleading CPV Codes may conceivably result in legal challenge1, particularly if there has been an adverse or misleading impact on the transparent communication of a requirement to the market.

Issues for Service Providers

Service providers need to be alive to the potential for mis-classification errors with the CPV Codes and should establish procedures to monitor published TED notices by use of key-word searches in addition to monitoring by CPV Code.

There is also a risk of reduced competition in the market sectors subject to the “Light-Touch” rules because there is no longer a legal obligation to advertise on TED/OJEU for requirements with values in the ranges €144- €750K (Central Government) and €443- €1m (Utilities).

This could see a lot of business being awarded without advertised competition although it appears that, for now, many contracting authorities/entities are continuing to advertise such contracts on national e-procurement portals on the basis of either national administrative rules or good practice in securing value for money. However, in the case of Ireland at any rate, there may be a further question as to whether such contracts are “reviewable contracts” as defined for the purposes of the Irish Remedies Regulations because the awarding of such contracts is outside the scope of the Irish Public Contracts Regulations of 2016. If that view is correct, it could mean that Irish economic operators in the social/health/educational sectors do not have access to the same legal remedies to challenge procurement decisions as economic operators in other sectors. This seems inherently unfair and a perverse outcome for legislation that has the elimination of arbitrary discrimination as one of its primary objectives.

James Farrell
Senior Procurement Consultant 

Filed Under: Info Tagged With: 2014/24/EU, 2014/25/EU, CPV Codes, EU Procurement, Light-Touch, OJEU, Procurement Procedures

Snapshot of Irish Procurement Activity at EU level* in 2018

8th February 2019 By Bid Services

The following statistics, extracted from the EU Commission’s Tenders Electronic Daily, provide an interesting snapshot of the level and types of procurement activity undertaken by Irish contracting authorities during 2018. It suggests a number of interesting trends including:

  • the emergence of the first Dynamic Purchasing Systems as enabled by the 2014 Directives;
  • significant uptake in the use of Competitive Procedure with Negotiation (41);
  • the first use of Contract Modification Notices (which permit certain changes to contracts during their term);
  • the first use of so-called “Light-Touch” procedures for certain health and social services as prescribed in Annex XIV to the 2014 Directive; and,
    an increased use of Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency Notices (VEAT).

We will comment further on the foregoing trends in future posts over the coming weeks but, for now, here are the main details for 2018:

Irish Procurement Activity at EU level* in 2018

Type of Notice Number Published by Irish Contracting AuthoritiesComment
Contract Notice 1,545Of which 1,268 were issued under the Public Sector Directive; 269 under the Utilities Directive and 8 under the Defence Directive.
Contract Notice for Open Procedure1,016
Contract Notice for Restricted Procedure 215
Contract Notice for Negotiated Procedure237(Utilities only)
Contract Notice for Competitive Procedure with Negotiation41(only available to Public Sector CAs since 2016)
Contract Notice for Competitive Dialogue 35
Contract Notices for Framework Agreements 320
Contract Award Notice1,1881,029 under Public Sector Directive; 157 under Utilities; 1 under Defence; 1 under other.
Prior Information Notice without Call for Competition125
Prior Information Notice with Call for Competition15
Periodic Indicative Notice27
Without Call for Competition
Periodic Indicative Notice with Call for Competition1
Design Contest6
Works Concession1
Services Concession10
Concession Award Notice 4
Qualification System with Call for Competition37Available to Utilities Sector only
Dynamic Purchasing System5
Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency Notice 28
Contract Modification Notice26
Annex XIV Notices (“Light Touch” Procedures) subject to €750k threshold (Public Sector) and 1m (Utilities)12Approx. 100 such notices for EU as a whole, with remainder from UK.
Corrigendum Notices 149

*This data relates only to contracts/concessions with values in excess of monetary thresholds prescribed in EU Directives. A large volume of contract notices for contracts under EU-Threshold values are published on the national procurement portals www.etenders.gov.ie and www.supplyGov.ie

The publication of contract notices represents the majority of activity and the number published in 2018 (1,545) represents an increase of 326 (or 26%) over the number of such notices published in 2014 (1219).

The publication of contract award notices shows a continuing and welcome improvement over previous years with 1,188 such notices published in 2018, an increase of 466 or 64% over the 722 award notices published in 2014.

At national level, the etenders website indicates that there were approximately 6,300 contract notices published on that portal during 2018 with approximately 2,800 award notices.

However, on the down side, the 2017 Appropriation Accounts published by the Comptroller and Auditor General during 2018 showed a continuing high level of contracts awarded or renewed without competitive process in 2017. The published figures show that, across the 42 Votes covered, there was a total of 686 such awards made during 2017 to a combined value of €122.6 million. These figures, which are self-declared under Circular 40/02, are in respect of central government bodies only and do not cover the Health, Local Authority, Semi-State (commercial and non-commercial) and Utilities Sectors.

With regard to the Health Sector, the 2017 HSE Annual Report confirms that non-compliance with public procurement rules remains an issue. That Report states that “Comptroller and Auditor General findings in 2017 indicated a level of non-compliance in relation to 36% (by value) of the sample of payments examined at 5 HSE locations visited during the audit.” However, the HSE (Health Procurement Services) is committed to addressing this matter and has put a programme in place to enhance compliance in the coming years.

Clearly, while much is being done by many diligent officials across the system, there is still room for improvement.

James Farrell
Procurement Research Limited
7 February 2019

© Copyright Procurement Research Limited, February 2019. Used by Public Procurement Services Ltd. with permission. Further use or citation not authorised without permission of copyright holder and due attribution.

Filed Under: Info Tagged With: 2018, Contract Notice, Defence Directive, EU Procurement, Irish Procurement, Procurement Research Limited, Public Sector Directive, Utilities Directive

book

A Must Read…

Written by Peter Brennan and Joanne Gillen, this book explains how buyers and suppliers can take full advantage of a procurement market worth €90 billion over the next five years.>

eLearning

  • Tender Training Excellence Programme

    The nine module Tender Training Excellence Programme is delivered online and is available free of charge.
    Start learning now!>

BID BLOG

Policy Submission to the New Government

10th December 2024

SUPPORT ACCELERATED PROJECT DELIVERY BE BASED ON A BUSINESS CASE BE EASIER TO MANAGE December 2024 ©Bid Services Introduction Bid Services (https://www.bidservices.ie) has supported hundreds of tenderers in winning public contracts since 2007. Our sister company, Public Procurement Services (http://www.publicprocurement.ie), has advised more than a hundred contracting authorities on procurements to a contract value over […] >

Smart Procurement and Housing

23rd January 2024

A smart procurement solution, as follows, could help accelerate housing construction activity. The Land Development Agency, the contracting authority, on its own behalf and on behalf of Approved Housing Bodies, tenders for the construction of an initial quantum of 100,000 social and affordable housing units on identified public sites where planning permission has been secured. […] >

Procuring the proposed National Maternity Hospital

16th May 2022

Here are some public interest issues that have got scant attention in recent weeks. In compliance with Cabinet procedures, the Government’s decision to tender for the construction and fit-out of the proposed NMH must be based on a detailed business case prepared under the Public Spending Code. The business case will have assessed construction and […] >

Upcoming Events

There are no upcoming events at this time.

Our Services

  • Expert Help
  • Help With Tenders
  • Tender Training
  • Document Design & Production
  • eLearning Programme

Tendering Tips

View our Tendering Tips to help you manage the process or understand how our support and expertise can make all the difference in your tender application.

Contact Us

Bid Services

5 Islington Ave, Sandycove, Dublin, A96 PY90
Tel: +353 1 525 2650
Email: info@bidservices.ie

Copyright © 2025 Bid Management Services