Doing business with the council

Find out how to apply for contracts to supply goods, work and services to us.

All contracts with a total value of £25,000 or more are advertised on the following websites:

We also buy commonly used goods and services through Eastern Shires Purchasing Organisation (ESPO).

How we advertise

Estimated contract value: £0 - £5,000

Procurement process: Get a minimum of one verbal/written quote

Minimum contract opportunity publication: None

Estimated contract value: £5,000 - £25,000

Procurement process: Get 3 written quotes (where practical)

Minimum contract opportunity publication: None

Estimated contract value: £25,000 - £177,897

Procurement process: Written quotes

Minimum contract opportunity publication:

Estimated contract value: £177,897 - to relevant threshold and above

Procurement process: Formal tender process

Minimum contract opportunity publication:

Find a Tender (FTS) is the new UK e-notification service where notices for new procurements are required to be published and replaces the Official Journal of the European Union’s Tenders Electronic Daily (OJEU/TED).

What will change for businesses?

Suppliers wishing to access public sector contract opportunities in the UK where the procurement is launched after 23:00 on 31 December 2020 will need to access FTS.

These changes do not affect suppliers’ access to other domestic portals, such as Contracts Finder.

Suppliers who wish to access public sector contract opportunities in the EU or information about procurements launched by UK contracting authorities before 23:00 on 31December 2020, may continue to do so via OJEU/TED.

Suppliers and data consumers who make use of OJEU/TED data outputs will be able to access publicly available data outputs for FTS. Data is available for testing, for support please contact the Crown Commercial Service Helpdesk on 0345 410 2222 or email the Commercial Service Helpdesk.

All contracts exceeding the thresholds are advertised in the Find a Tender Service (FTS). The thresholds are:

  • £177,897 (before VAT) for supplies and services
  • £552,950 (before VAT) for social care, health and other specified services that fall under the light touch regime
  • £4,447,447 (before VAT) for works

Selection questionnaire

To help make the procurement process as accessible as possible, we use the standard selection questionnaire developed by the Crown Commercial Services.

Current procurement contracts

Contracts valued over £5,000 in total (over the length of the contract) are listed below. 

The list includes some frameworks agreements let by ESPO that are used by the council.

Current council contracts

If you have any queries about this information email commissioning.support@leics.gov.uk

Modern slavery statement

This statement sets out Leicestershire County Council’s actions to understand all potential modern slavery risks related to its business and to put in place steps that
are aimed at ensuring that there is no slavery or human trafficking in its own business or its supply chains. 

The referenced media source is missing and needs to be re-embedded.

Supplier code of conduct

The Council (in conjunction with ESPO) has developed an ethical Supplier Code of Conduct which applies to all companies/organisations that do business with the Council. The purpose of the Code of Conduct is to set out principles to help suppliers to understand the standards and behaviours that are expected of them when working with the Council.

Supplier Portal

Leicestershire County Council operate an I-Supplier Portal, which allows suppliers 24 hour access to view the status of any purchase order, invoice or payment, as well as allowing them to make amendments to their supplier account on our Oracle system.

Suppliers using the portal will need to agree to the Terms and Conditions.

To gain access to the Portal:

If you are an existing supplier, then send a request to financeservicedesk@emss.org.uk.

If you are a new supplier you will be able to request access during the Supplier Registration, to which you will be invited by an LCC Contact.

Further information

New suppliers and accessing opportunities

We use the East Midlands Tenders portal to conduct all of our procurement exercises. 

The use of this system allows a full audit trail of communications with all tenderers to ensure full confidentiality of all documentation and correspondence until the deadline for the receipt of submissions. 

If you are seeking to provide goods and services to Leicestershire County Council or are responding to a public notice advertising an opportunity being let by the Council, please register your company details at the Council’s tendering website.

Once the registration process is completed, you will have access to a wide range of opportunities being let by numerous local authorities in the UK who use this portal for their procurements, in addition to those let by Leicestershire County Council, which you may wish to express interest in.

The East Midlands Tenders portal supplier help pages will assist you in registering your company, guide you to the opportunity you are looking for and how to respond to it.

Communications on East Midlands Tenders

Any correspondence issued to your organisation via the portal will be sent to the person who is the named registered person on the portal for your organisation. 

If your organisation has registered multiple contacts, communication will be directed to the person who expressed an interest in any specific contract on behalf of your organisation. 

Leicestershire County Council cannot be held responsible if the named registered person does not share information and/or documents supplied to them via the portal. 

We strongly recommend that once registered, your company registration is reviewed regularly to ensure that correspondence details are up to date.

Tender queries on East Midlands Tenders

If you need to contact commissioning support as a result of registering for a specific opportunity, you should only use the messaging function, which is contained within the relevant contract dashboard on the portal.

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Technical queries on East Midlands Tenders

The East Midlands Tenders portal is operated on behalf of Leicestershire County Council by Proactis and members of the commissioning support unit have no access to any of the supplier response processes.

If you should experience any problems or require assistance in using the East Midlands Tenders portal please read the reference guides available on the portal. 

If after reading these reference guides you are still unable to resolve your issue and require support please contact the Due North technical support team. 

You should first email procontractsuppliers@proactis.com for all support issues.

This action will auto-log a support ticket in the new PROACTIS Supplier Support Helpdesk.

On logging a ticket, if you have not already logged one before, you will be issued with a registration email that will give you instructions to allow you to log in, log, review and update your own tickets. 

In emergency situations you can contact the Supplier Support Service Desk on +44 (0)330 005 0352 but this should be by exception and not as a rule and you should already have logged a support ticket prior to your call. Telephone lines are open from 8.30am – 5pm Monday to Friday, excluding English public holidays. 

Please note: the technical support team will not be able to answer any tender related or contract opportunity specific enquiries. These must only be submitted via the messaging function as described above.

Invoice queries

Information on how to submit an invoice or a credit note to the Council can be found on our invoices and credit notes page.

If you are contacting the commissioning support unit to expedite invoice payments from the Council, you will need to contact the Council respresentative who should be named on the purchase order you will have received prior to commencing work or providing services to the Council.

Freedom of information requests

If you wish to submit a Freedom of Information request, you can do so by visiting the Council's Freedom of Information webpage.

All other queries

All other enquiries will be responded to as quickly as possible but if you know the specific commissioning support team member who deals with your requests please send your email directly to them.

Further reading