FOI 01-25: Information regarding all public contracts awarded without competitive tendering from 1 January 2023 to 31 December 2024
Information Standards Freedom of Information Response
5 February 2025
Our Ref: FoI 01-25
Freedom of Information Act 2000
I am writing to confirm that the Northern Ireland Assembly Commission (Assembly Commission) has processed your request dated 2 January 2025 in line with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA). In your request, you asked that the Assembly Commission provide the following information:
'1. Public Contracts Without Competitive Tendering
Details of all public contracts awarded without competitive tendering from 1 January 2023 to 31 December 2024, including:
- The name of the contractor or supplier.
- The value of the contract.
- A brief description of the goods or services provided.
- The reason competitive tendering was not used.
2. Consultancy Services
Copies of invoices for consultancy services provided to the Northern Ireland Assembly between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2024, including:
- The name of the consultancy firm.
- The value of each invoice.
- A brief description of the services rendered.'
Our response
The Assembly Commission holds some of the information that you have requested.
Public Contracts Without Competitive Tendering
Information on contracts under £30,000 is not held centrally. Under the Assembly Commission's corporate procurement policy, contracts under £30,000 are managed by individual business areas. The Assembly Commission considers that the costs of identifying contracts <£30,000, and the subset of those contracts which were the subject of direct awards, would exceed the appropriate limit. The Assembly Commission is not obliged to comply with this element of the request.
Information on contracts with a value of over £30,000 is published on the website operated by the Assembly Commission. This included details of contracts awarded without competitive tendering - in the column 'award type' these contracts are referred to as 'direct award contracts'.[1] This information is exempt from disclosure under section 21 of the FOIA as it is reasonably accessible by other means. Information on the reason for the direct award of these contracts is not published on the website and is as follows-
Accounts Payable (P2P) Software System 2024-2026: the software is at end of life and a short-term contract was required to facilitate the transition to new software. There are no other resellers of the software licenses or any other supplier which can provide support and maintenance for it.
Interim Provision of Sign Language Interpretation: the sign language services framework used by the Commission did not cover broadcasting. Interim providers were utilised while a solution was procured.
Legislative Workbench Version 3: this software is at end of life and a short-term contract was required to facilitate the transition to new software. Propylon own the software and there were no other suppliers available to provide the services needed.
Microsoft Unified Support: Microsoft is the sole provider of the services.
Occupational Health Services: the services required relate to the Northern Ireland Civil Service Pension Scheme. The Department of Finance administer the pension scheme and are the sole provider of these services.
Provision of Stab Vests: after conducting two open competitions the Assembly Commission was unable to find a supplier who could meet our requirements and offer value for money and awarded the contractor to a supplier who provided these products to the Scottish Parliament.
SUN Licensing and Maintenance 2024 - 26: the software is at end of life and a short-term contract was required to facilitate the transition to new software. There are no other resellers of the SUN software license or any other supplier which can provide support and maintenance for it.
Consultancy Services
Copies of invoices
The Assembly Commissions considers that this information is exempt from disclosure under section 43(2) of the FOIA. The disclosure of this information would prejudice the commercial interests of suppliers and the Assembly Commission for the following reasons-
- Invoices contain the commercial rates charged by suppliers. Potential suppliers will be discouraged from bidding or tendering for contracts published by the Assembly Commission if commercially sensitive information is routinely released. This will reduce competition and increase the cost to the Assembly Commission of procuring consultancy services reducing.
- There is a public interest in ensuring that private sector companies can compete on a level playing field and disclosure of commercially sensitive information could compromise the reputation of the suppliers concerned.
Section 43 is a qualified exemption and the Assembly Commission has considered whether the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing copies of invoices.
The Assembly Commission considers that need to maintain a competitive market for services of this kind favours maintaining the exemption. The Assembly Commission also considers that the public interest in these matters can be satisfied by providing details of suppliers of consultancy services above £30,000, the upper limit of the contracts awarded to them, and the sum spent on consultancy services by the Assembly Commission in each year.
The Assembly Commission accordingly considers that the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing copies of invoices.
Details of contractors
Page 71 of the Assembly Commission's Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24 (PDF, 124 pages, 1,574KB) which outlines that the Assembly Commission made payments to consultants totaling £184,672 in 2023-24 and £207,656 in 2022-23 in 2024.
The Assembly Commission awarded three >£30,000 contracts for consultancy services. Each of these contracts was awarded following a competition which complied fully with the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. The contracts are as follows-
- Parliament Buildings integrated security management system consultancy.
- Senate Training Limited.
- Advice on the design and implementation of a new security system for Parliament Buildings.
- Contact value - up to £40k
- Technical Advisor for Broadcasting.
- Wave Science Technology Ltd.
- Specialist technical services to help with the tendering for a broadcasting provider.
- Contract value - up to £64.5k
- Technical Advisor for Broadcasting
- Wave Science Technology Ltd.
- These services are for a specialist with technical expertise to help deliver a project to upgrade the debating chambers and committee rooms to a modern, reliable and compatible with broadcasting industry standards.
- Contract value - up to £100k
Further Information
You have the right to request an internal review of this decision by the Assembly Commission. If you wish to request such a review, please write to me at the above address. If, after that review, you are dissatisfied with the way in which the Assembly Commission has handled your request for information, you may complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.
Your request for information and our response may be published in the disclosure log maintained by the Assembly Commission under a publication scheme agreed with the ICO. The request and our response will be anonymised.
Yours faithfully
INFORMATION STANDARDS
[1] Note that the contract identified as 'framework direct award' was made to a supplier who was a member of a framework established following a competitive tender process run by the UK Government Crown Commercial Services body.
