Looking at the OJEU financial thresholds process

Financial thresholds - Integrated currencies and legislation

Like much of the legislation and directives around the European tendering sector, the rather dry language used in much of the documentation can render it rather difficult for alot of businesses to comprehend. Like all legal language however, it can be broken down into terminology that anyone can understand – its just that no-one really ever does it, therefore we thought we’d trawl through various websites and blogs give it a go.

What is a threshold?

Threshold, Definition: (from The Free Dictionary)

The place or point of beginning; the outset.

Of course, in terms of tendering for contracts, thresholds apply to the financial aspects of any particular tender. These thresholds define whether or not a contract opportunity must be published in the OJEU (Official Journal of the European Union).

Procurement directives from the European Union (guidance PDF) stipulate that public sector organisations, as well as private companies operating in the water, energy, transport and postal services (collectively referred to as Utilities), have to publish OJEU notices advertising that a competitive tendering process for a particular contract is underway.

However, due to the sheer number of tenders offered on a daily basis throughout Europe, forcing each of these to publish in the OJEU would be an administrative nightmare and impossible to keep track of. Therefore, legislators within the EU set a series of financial thresholds, above which it is required for a contract opportunity to be advertised.

Yet more acronyms become involved…….

Things get complicated when external bodies outwith the EU become involved. Essentially, the OJEU thresholds are updated every two years in line with World Trade Organisation legislation (the Government Procurement Agreement – GPA) – to which the European Union is a signatory. Confusingly, whilst European legislation sets out the thresholds in Euro currency, the GPA defines them in the form of something known as Special Drawing Rights (SDRs).

(Deep breath). SDRs are an asset established by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – sorry yet another acronym.  SDR value fluctuates on a daily basis and is based on the relative values of the Euro, Sterling, Japanese yen, and the US dollar. The bi-annual updates to the EU thresholds factor in relative movement between the SDR and the Euro (see the document here). Obviously for those outwith the Eurozone (i.e. the UK) there has to be a further alteration to the figures in order to bring them into line with the new threshold levels – luckily some legal minds at the EU publish these for our benefit (PDF). (Breathe out).

What are the current OJEU thresholds?

Public contracts from January 2010

	SUPPLIES	SERVICES	WORKS
Schedule 1 entires	£101,323 (€125,000)	£101,3232 (€125,000)	£3,927,260 (€4,845,000)
Other public sector contracting authorities	£156,442 (€193,000)	£156,442 (€193,000)	£3,927,260 (€4,845,000)
Indicative Notices	£607,935 (€750,000)	£607,935 (€750,000)	£3,927,260 (€4,845,000)
Small lots	£64,846 (€80,000)	£64,846 (€80,000)	£810,580 (€1,000,000)

Utilities contract thresholds from January 2010

	SUPPLIES	SERVICES	WORKS
All sectors	£313,694 (€387,000)	£313,694 (€387,000)	£3,927,260 (€4,845,000)
Indicative Notices	£607,935 (€750,000)	£607,935 (€750,000)	£3,927,260 (€4,845,000)
Small lots	£64,846 (€80,000)	£64,846 (€80,000)	£810,580 (€1,000,000)

There are exceptions to these thresholds, each of the following have a threshold of £156,442 (€193,000).

• Part B (residual) services
• Research & Development Services
• Television and Radio Broadcast services
• Interconnection services
• Integrated telecommunications services

Thanks very much for persevering with this post, the threshold issue is rather complex – we hope that things are slightly clearer. If there are any other resources which you feel could be useful is helping us to understand this issue then please point us in the right direction.

London Olympics 2012: £700m Tenders up for grabs!

Some  excitng news today from the organisers of the London Olympics in 2012 – they have revealed over £700m worth of tenders related to goods and services.

Contracts will be available in the following categories:

• Facilities management and catering
• Production services for ceremonies
• Security
• Services
• Sports
• Technology
• Transport and logistics
• Venues and venue logistics

You can read full details of the announcement on the Events Magazine and BBC website. Lord Coe has told the BBC that the scale of the contracts on offer is ‘potentially massive’.

Post-Recession Growth Sectors?

Pointing out future business

These difficult financial times are testing the resources of every business out there in the EU. Even the most hardened economic experts are reluctant to predict when the current recession will end and what life will be like afterwards. There is little doubt that things will never go back to ‘normal’.

Doom and gloom aside – this recession will one day come to an end and there is little doubt that tenders opportunites will still exist, however, uncovering these niches will require a little more intelligence and analysis than before.

The question is – what form will these opportunities take, and in what sectors are they most likely to materialise?

Surely, businesses within the EU public sector are going to have to become smarter. For example, there seems little point in trying to compete with China when it comes to large scale manufacturing or individual product markets – instead focus wil be more likely to shift into niches within these sectors. This could also act as the clarion call to the long-belegaured manufacturing sector – smaller scale and knowledge-led could be the answer.

All this is obviously conjecture on our part, and to be perfectly honest we need your help on this – what are most likely to come out of the current downturn as the most valuable sectors?

Please vote in our poll…

Format of the OJEU

Every working day the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU, formerly OJEC) is published in each of the twenty langauges that make up the European Union. The publication itself consists of three sections or ‘series’ which cover information and notices, legislation and public procurement.

There are three essential types of notice which are of direct concern to businesses looking to win public sector contracts – these are pre-information notices, invitations to tender and contract awards.

There are however, certain difficulties faced in deciphering the nature of data published in the OJEU.

• Due to the sheer volume of opportunities on offer it can take to find those contracts which will match your business needs – there are a number of OJEU notice services that can help you with this.
• Drilling down to the correct categories of contracts can be difficult
• Translation issues – OJEU notices are almost always submitted in the language of the county where the tender is offered. This is translated using an automated service that can provide inconsistent results, and many opportunites can be brushed over as a result.

The awarding authorities for public sector tenders are central government, local or regional authorities, bodies governed by public law, or organisations containing one or more of these bodies. There is over 300bn Euro worth of of public secTor contract works awarded each year – and over 1000 invitations to tender are published on a daily basis – as you can see, there are plenty of opportunities out there!

These are just some of the details that you can find within the OJEU – good luck with any opportunities that you come accross, and if anyone has any further advice – please don’t hesitate to comment.

What exactly is the OJEU?

What is the OJEU and what does it do? – This is a question that we have often been asked over the years. There is now no hard-copy version published and the entire list of tenders notices can be found online. Essentially, all public sector tendering and contract opportunities are published within the OJEU.  Put simply OJEU is the acronym used to describe Official Journal of the European Union. This publication was formerly known as OJEC – Official Journal of the European Community. The OJEU initially took over from the much earlier Official Journal of the European Coal and Steel community which was published in 1952. The Official Journal has been published in its current form since the Nice Treaty came into force in 2003, and has evovled since its original inception.

European Union Directives dictate that all European government contract tenders above £97,000 (central) and £144,000 (local) have to be published in the OJEU. This includes contracts and tenders notices from a wide range of sources – includimg organisations and projects that receive public funding such as Central Government Departments, Local Authorities, Educational Establishments and NHS Trusts.

The unprecedented levels of public sector investment throughout Europe can be seen through the constatntly updated OJEU. There are around 2500 new tenders notices adverstised every week, including invitations to tender, prior information notices, qualification systems and contract award notices.

Hopefully this has cleared up the OJEU question for you, any other definitions and advice are welcomed.

Hello and Welcome to OJEU Tenders Information

Hello everyone and thanks for reading the OJEU Tenders Information Blog. We are primarily here to provide insight into the world of the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU), which rather confusingly was formerly known as OJEC (Official Journal of the European Community). As this is by nature a fast moving and complex subject area, we aim to collate information from a wide variety of sources in order to give a true picture of the OJEU tenders landscape. Please subscribe to our RSS Feed or Bookmark us in oder to keep up to date with our latest post.