Millstream has reported a rise in the number of low value construction tenders over the past 12 months, which it believes is opening up opportunities for UK companies to secure work from the public sector.
With ongoing demand for new schools, hospitals, housing and leisure facilities, the public sector is a rich source of opportunities for the UK construction industry – and with hundreds of local contracts published every week, tenders are a vital way of securing new business.
Millstream operates the myTenders and Tenders Direct websites, which allow public sector organisations to publish tenders and private sector companies to bid for new business, as well as national procurement portals for Scotland and Wales.
The company has reported a 6% increase in public sector construction tenders in the UK and Ireland over the last year – rising to 12,839 available contracts in 2013 from 12,045 the previous year – meaning more opportunities for UK companies to secure work from the public sector.
Opportunities include new build construction, building services, civil engineering, building refurbishment, exterior and interior works and professional services.
And around 70% of the construction tenders published recently by Millstream have been below the EU threshold, which means they do not need to be advertised in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU).
Tim Williams, managing director of Millstream, says this means less competition and more opportunities for construction companies.
“EU legislation means that contracting authorities must adhere to transparent, non-discriminatory and proportional principles when purchasing goods and services. They must also advertise all contracts above threshold values in the OJEU – in the case of construction this is set at £4.3million,” he said.
“Without the fear of competition from overseas contractors, lower value tenders are therefore particularly attractive to SMEs.”
However, lower value tenders are often not widely advertised and the key, says Tim, is to make sure companies are aware of all potential opportunities.
“At Millstream, we source lower value tenders from across the public sector to make them easy to access, opening up literally thousands of business opportunities to companies in the UK.”
Millstream’s Tenders Direct website allows private companies to identify real business opportunities from the public sector, with bespoke alerts on specific tenders emailed directly to subscribers’ inboxes.
For more information, visit www.tendersdirect.co.uk