Government Legal Department produces slimline ‘Public Sector Contract’
The Government Legal Department (GLD) has produced a new, slimline ‘Public Sector Contract’ which it claims will allow small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to bid for billions of pounds worth of government facilities management contracts more easily.
The GLD said that a lawyer within its Commercial Law Group, Chris Stanley, had spent the past year condensing some 50,000 words of the existing Crown Commercial Service (CCS) contract terms into the new document.
The Department added: “The finished document promises a more user-friendly route to government work and a quicker, more streamlined way of working. Not having to wade through dense contracts will save money and resources not only for SMEs but also within government itself.”
The new contract is a collaborative effort by the Government Digital Service (GDS), which focused on user research, content design and interaction design, the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) and the legal review of both GLD and law firm DLA Piper.
Stanley worked alongside Tracy Hughes, a content designer from the Digital Marketplace team at GDS, in producing the document.
He said the chief difference with previous documents was that “the existing content is presented in a clearer and more concise way, while frequently unnecessary provisions have been moved into modular optional Schedules”.
One of the major benefits was that a small organisation or company that did not have a dedicated legal team would now be better able to understand and adapt the Public Sector Contract to its needs by merely selecting those elements it needed to apply, the GLD said.
Stanley added that some smaller public sector organisations that might not have extensive procurement experience would also benefit.
Public sector buyers which have greater legal capabilities, such as the Ministry of Justice, will still be able to adapt the contract to suit their more specialised requirements.
The new Facilities Management Contract was launched on 8 January 2018.
