Contracts & Procurement

Tenders, Contracts, Service Level Agreements and Framework Agreements

The following advice on tenders, contracts, service level agreements, and framework agreements is based upon specific legal advice provided by Cabinet Office and Office of Government Commerce legal teams.

The National School of Government is part of the Crown and, because the Crown is legally indivisible, it is not appropriate to talk of contracts between the National School and other Crown bodies. If a Crown body wishes to engage the National School to provide services then this will typically be documented by a service level agreement (SLA) and not a contract. The procurement regime applies to contracts, not to any other less formal devices (such as SLAs) which two or more parties might use to set out what has been agreed between themselves as it is clear departments and their executive agencies (which themselves have no legal personality which is separate from their "parent" department) are part of the Crown. This is not to suggest that the National School is unwilling to be benchmarked against commercial providers, and may choose to participate in a procurement competition for these reasons. But we would wish to record that, based on specific legal advice:

(a) neither National School of Government nor potential "client" departments should feel legally obliged to embark on a full blown procurement exercise and

(b) the outcome of a successful tender will not be followed by the creation of a contractual relationship between the National School and the client department or agency.

As a general rule the same applies to framework agreements. It is very unusual for framework agreements to exclude the possibility of the principal contracting with a new provider (i.e. not a framework participant) if they so choose. The point of framework agreements is to provide a buyer with a tailor made menu of services and prices from several providers, but they do not usually operate on an exclusive basis.

If further clarification is required, please contact the nominated National School Account Manager. SRM Team.