Public Sector Outsourcing & Shared Services

Our team has an in depth knowledge of the procurement regime and specialises in providing comprehensive procurement advice to public, private and third sector clients on a variety of projects. Our experience spans a number of sectors including:

The Procurement Lifecycle

The Team’s work captures the whole procurement lifecycle. This includes providing advice on public procurement strategies, market testing, routes to market (including Government frameworks), the evaluation and clarification process and the application of the procurement rules throughout. Our “cradle to grave” procurement process management approach assists Contracting Authorities with internal resourcing, and has proved crucial to helping Contracting Authorities to deliver procurements in the desired timeframes.

Procedures and Documentation

The Team has a comprehensive understanding of a variety of procurement procedures, and regularly advises on the open procedure, restricted procedure, competitive procedure with negotiation and competitive dialogue procedure. This experience enables the Team to provide integral strategic support and advice to Contracting Authorities on the design and structure of procurements to ensure the procurement process is compliant and fit for purpose.

The Team regularly drafts procurement and contractual documentation suites, including Invitations to Tender, Selection Questionnaires (including PAS91), contract notices, evaluation methodology, and contract documents, tailoring these to the procurement process and the individual client’s needs.

The Team also reviews and updates client template documentation to account for any updates to procurement regulation in the UK, including Procurement Policy Notes and legislation amendments.

Procurement Challenges

We also advise on significant procurement challenges, both bringing them and defending them.

Outsourcing and Shared Services

For over 15 years the Team have been advising their clients on running whole outsourcing process to include procurement, contracts, TUPE, pensions and vires. In recent years we have been involved in insourcing projects and re-procurement of outsourced services.

Our extensive experience and tailored suite of documents for outsourcing enables us to provide high quality advice in an efficient manner, whilst ensuring all key risks are addressed and minimised to deliver the most cost effective risk profile for the relevant market. The Team deal with the commissioning lifecycle of services across all areas, in particular FM (hard and soft), care, revenues and benefits, customer services, IT, land charges, asset and estate management, waste, streetscene, leisure and highways.

We regularly advise our public sector clients on shared services arrangements, either through delegation of functions, joint committees, inter-authority agreements, Hamburg compliance collaboration agreements and Teckal compliant joint ventures.