Our contracting process

We spend approximately £40 million a year buying goods and services including: 

• waste collection vehicles, equipment and services
• construction services, housing related repairs and building maintenance
• professional consultancy services
• office services, for example stationery and print.

Contracting opportunities 

Contracts that we are currently tendering for can be found online. If you are interested in opportunities to sell please visit the resources below:

• Contracts Finder - to view tender opportunities above £25,000 and below the World Trade Organisation
• Find a Tender Service - tender opportunities for goods and services above the World Trade Organisation 
• ESPO
• Crown Commercial Service

To hear about upcoming tender opportunities, procurement workshops and other information and advice, please sign up to our business newsletter. 

For more information on supplier expenditure please visit our contracts and finance webpage.

How we buy goods and services

We purchase based on value for money, simplicity and ease of process. We buy goods and services via:

• Framework contracts - contracts that have been pre-tendered by organisations, so reducing the time it takes to instruct you to carry out work. If you are awarded a framework contract, we are able to pass work to you without asking you to tender every time. These can cover a wide range of goods and services used in the public sector.
• Catalogues - we purchase from ESPO's catalogue of commonly used goods.
• Partner authorities - where possible we try to align requirements and specifications with our partner authorities (Huntingdonshire District Council and Cambridge City Council).
• Approved lists – these are not currently used, instead we let framework contracts.
• Direct to market -  the value of the procurement determines the process:
• contracts up to £5,000: a minimum of one quote is required.
• contracts between £5,000 and £25,000: a minimum of 3 quotes are required.
• contracts between £25,000 and the World Trade Organisation Thresholds detailed above: contracts are let via our formal tender process and advertised on our Tendering Portal and Contracts Finder.
• contracts over the OJEU threshold: contracts comply with the World Trade Organisation Thresholds and are advertised on GOV.UK's find a tender service.

How to bid

We provide the following bidding instructions when we issue an Invitation to Quote or an Invitation to Tender.

• Invitation to Quote bidding instructions [PDF, 0.1MB]
• Invitation to Tender bidding instructions

Terms and conditions

We use the following terms and conditions when we purchase goods, services and/or works:

• Terms and conditions of standard services
• Standard terms and conditions for the purchase of goods [PDF, 0.5MB]
• Standard terms and conditions for the purchase of services [PDF, 0.5MB] [PDF, 1MB]
• Standard terms and conditions for the purchase of lower value goods, services and works

For various contracts these standard terms and conditions may be amended by specific terms and conditions that relate to that particular contract.