Remedies Directive an impediment to local authority procurement: LGA survey

More than two-thirds of local authority procurement officers (69%) say Remedies Directive challenges from unsuccessful bidders is an issue that presents a challenge to their council’s procurement activities, research conducted by the Local Government Association has found.

One in five of the 141 respondents indicated that their authority had received such a challenge in the 12 months previous to the survey.

“There were several cases where a substantial amount of staff time was taken up with this – with four respondents stating that their responsible officers spent over 20% of their time dealing with legal challenges,” the LGA report said.

Half of respondents reported that the time spent on legal challenges had grown over the last five years and as a result of the Remedies Directive, although 27% suggested it had stayed the same over both periods.

A number of procurement officers highlighted an increase in “informal” challenges that had become increasingly time consuming to deal with.

The research also showed a great deal of legal uncertainty over the procurement regime. After disputes with unsuccessful bidders, the most commonly identified challenges reported by respondents were:

- Legal uncertainty about sharing, trading or ‘pooling’ services with other public bodies (65%)
- Legal uncertainty about sharing services with other councils (64%), and
- Uncertainty created by UK or EU case law from the courts (62%).

The survey reveals the Remedies Directive to be a mixed blessing. More than two-thirds of respondents agreed that it had improved transparency in the procurement process.

However, half (50%) argued that the legislation had not led to more efficient and effective procurement practice, compared to a third (36%) who said it had improved matters.

Some two-thirds reported that procurement costs and administrative burdens had worsened as a result of the directive.

A copy of the survey can be dowloaded here: http://www.lga.gov.uk/lga/aio/16052133