Government opens up contract opportunities for small businesses

It’s recently come to our attention that some of our clients are still paying annual subscription fees to receive and access public sector tender opportunities through OJEU (The official journal of the European Union).

The Cabinet Office recently announced a package of measures to give smaller businesses a better change of winning government business. This reflects claims from the Conservative Party, put forward in the year before the general election, that government has given too much business to major suppliers.

Key measures in the package include “seeking to eliminate” pre-qualification questionnaires for all central government procurements under £100,000. In addition, a new website - Contracts Finder, is now live and is a source of information on public sector contracts worth more than £10,000.

As part of the Government’s objective to be more transparent on public sector spending, the site also includes details of contracts already awarded. For this reason, it does take some time to get to grips with the search facility on the Contract Finder website, but there is a PDF guide that explains how to distinguish the signed contracts from the open tenders.

If you are paying high subscription charges to a tender matching service, take a look at Contracts Finder, as a FREE alternative to accessing those public sector contract opportunities!