Private providers and colleges could be further driven away from subcontracting by the government’s new Procurement Act as it risks more litigation, experts have warned.
The act, which got royal assent last month and will come into force from next October, will also “create additional bureaucracy” across the board in further education, lawyers and sector leaders have told FE Week.
It covers procurement across all industries, but FE bigwigs say it could have far-reaching consequences for the sector. The Department for Education has itself been on a mission to significantly reduce the amount of subcontracting in FE, in a crackdown prompted by concerns about poor oversight and fraud.
The Procurement Act means that anyone tendering across the public sector, and failing to win a tender, will receive a breakdown of the individual scores awarded to the winning bid and their own, which they can then compare.
