Revised procurement policy note published on past performance of suppliers

The Crown Commercial Service has published a revised procurement policy note (PPN) on taking account of suppliers’ past performance.

The PPN incorporates the requirements of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 and sets out Government policy to ensure suppliers’ past performance is taken into account in certain procurements.

The PPN applies from 1 April 2015 to the procurements in respect of all in-scope stand-alone public contracts and framework agreements (as set out in the policy note) for which an OJEU Notice has not yet been published.

The contents of the revised PPN apply to all central government departments, their executive agencies and non departmental public bodies (‘In-Scope Organisations').

The policy note, which can be viewed here, details two sets of actions:

• Part A – Selection Criteria: sets out requirements relating to the assessment of suppliers’ reliability as demonstrated by their performance of past contracts;
• Part B – Provision of Information: concerns the provision of information about suppliers’ past performance both to and by ‘In-Scope Organisations’.

The PPN tells In-Scope Organisations to note that regulation 57(8)(g) creates a new discretionary ground for exclusion relating to past contractual performance.

“In particular, an economic operator may be excluded if it has shown significant or persistent deficiencies in the performance of a substantive requirement under a prior public contract, a prior contract with a contracting entity or a prior concession contract which led to early termination of that prior contract, damages or other comparable sanctions,” the PPN said.