Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment he has made of the effect of the provisions of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 set at in Procurement Policy Note 04/15 on restricting the taking into account of past performance in awarding contracts on competition, social value and value for money from the public purse.

UK public procurement policy is to award contracts on the basis of value for money, which means the optimum combination of cost and quality over the lifetime of the project. Wider socio-economic criteria can be taken into account at tender evaluation stage if they relate directly to the subject matter of a contract from the point of view of the contracting authority.

The Public Contracts Regulations 2015 explicitly allows past performance to be taken into account, and we issued Procurement Policy Note 04/15 to assist public procurers to do so.