Information on ONS contracts

You asked

Please could you provide the following information in regards to your contracts:

1. Contract Reference
2. Contract Title
3. Procurement Category
4. Supplier Name
5. Spend (Total or Annual)
6. Contract Duration
7. Contract Extensions
8. Contract Starting Date
9. Expiration Date
10. Contract Description [Please provide me with as much detail as possible.]
11. Contact Owner (Full contact details if possible.)
12. CPV codes/ProClass

Can you also provide me with contact details of the person responsible for the actual contract’s register or their job title?

We said

Thank you for your enquiry.

The information requested can be found in the excel file provided with the exception of question 6 as we do not record the contract duration. However, we have provided the contract start date and contract end date where possible.

There are some contracts listed with a contract value of £0. This is because we record all procurement activity including areas such as overarching Framework Agreements which enable contracts to be awarded where applicable, in addition to memorandums of understanding between organisations that may be based on reciprocal work, for example. With regards to question 5 – we do not record the spend per contract but have provided the contract value at award stage to comply with the request; with regards to question 12 – we do not record the CPV code for all contracts but have provided our internal classification which is also used as part of our e-procurement process where applicable.

Please note, we have withheld detailed contract descriptions under section 43(2) of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000. S.43(2) states that information is exempt information if its disclosure under this Act would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any person (including the public authority holding it). The disclosure of the information would likely prejudice the commercial interests of ONS and the third party companies in question as it would allow competitors to know specific details of payments to contractors. This may impact future contract negotiations for not only ONS, but for third parties as disclosure could impact their chances of fair competition.

Use of the s.43(2) exemption requires consideration of the public interest test. Whilst we recognise that there is always an interest in the allocation of public funds, we believe that this is outweighed in this instance by the impact that disclosure would have on the future employment negotiations of both ONS and other parties and the upholding of the healthy bidding process for tendering work.

In addition, contact details are not provided for contracts as these constitute personal information and are exempt from disclosure under section 40(2) of FOIA. However, you can email us at commercial.admin@ons.gov.uk if you have any further queries.