Doing business with the council

Procurement Act 2023

The rules that shape how public bodies buy goods and services changed on 24 February 2025.

The Procurement Act 2023 has introduced measures to improve and streamline the way procurement is done and benefit prospective suppliers of all sizes, particularly small businesses, start-ups and social enterprises.

If your business supplies goods, works or services to Leicestershire County Council, or wishes to, you need to know about the changes.

Please sign up to the Cabinet Office webinars.

These webinars are aimed at suppliers and any other external organisations with an interest in public procurement. They will focus on what the key changes are, how the central digital platform will work (featuring a live demonstration), and will be an opportunity for you to ask questions on your own preparations for go-live.

The Procurement Act 2023 legislates for provision of a central digital platform to facilitate the publishing of required notices and documents in accordance with the new regulations. The central digital platform will be an enhancement of the existing Find a Tender service and will make it easier to find and bid for contracts, and for buyers to meet their transparency commitments under the Act.

It will:

Feature a simple registration and identification for both suppliers and buyers.
Store suppliers’ core business details that can be used for multiple bids.
Enable easy management and updating of core information quickly, and shared easily between suppliers, eSenders and buyers.
Make public procurement opportunities visible making it easier to search at no cost and set up alerts for tenders of interest for suppliers.
Allow for procurement noticing throughout the procurement lifecycle.
Capture procurement data and eventually allow creation of dashboards to analyse that data.

The central digital platform is the place for suppliers to find out what opportunities are coming along that they might wish to bid for, as well as details on contracts that have been let, how contracts are being changed and other useful information. Additionally, suppliers will use the central digital platform to register, input and then share their commonly used information as part of the procurement.

Please see a guide for suppliers on how to register:

How we advertise

For an estimated contract value of:

£0 to £5,000 (before VAT) – our procurement process is to get a minimum of one verbal / written quote. We are not required to publish this opportunity.
£5,000 to £25,000 (before VAT) – our procurement process is to get 3 written quotes (where practical). We are not required to publish this opportunity.
£25,000 to relevant threshold (before VAT) as listed below – our procurement process is to get written quotes via below threshold RFQ, unless there is a valid reason for restricting the competition. We publish these opportunities to the central digital platform Find a tender service (FTS) and East Mids Tenders (procurement portal).
Public Procurement Threshold (before VAT) (as listed below) and above – our procurement process is a formal tender process. We publish these opportunities to Find a tender service (FTS) and East Mids Tenders (procurement portal).
Relevant thresholds are:
- £179,087 (before VAT) for goods and services
- £552,950 (before VAT) for social care, health and other specified services that fall under the light touch regime
- £4,477,175 (before VAT) for works

We also buy commonly used goods and services through Eastern Shires Purchasing Organisation (ESPO). Please see Becoming an ESPO supplier.

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

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

Standard conditions of contract

Leicestershire County Council’s standard terms and conditions appended are a set of fixed terms and conditions for goods and/or services to be applied as between the council and a supplier/provider of goods and/or services to the council where a formal contract or terms and conditions haven't otherwise been provided for by the council in the tender documents or through the tender process.

In such circumstances, even if no reference is made to the appended terms and conditions, the appended terms and conditions shall apply exclusively to the entire business relation between the council and the supplier/provider of the goods and/or services, unless different terms and conditions (including those of the supplier/provider) have expressly been confirmed by the council in writing.

Standard terms and conditions of contract for the supply of goods and services PDF, 487.69 KB Opens new window

Early payment partnership (EPP)

The early payment programme gives suppliers the opportunity to be paid as soon as the invoice is authorised, ahead of the 30-day terms.

Benefits of EPP

Leicestershire County Council believes that strong supplier relationships are essential in achieving our strategic goals. We recognise early payment can make a significant impact on the growth and development of a suppliers business.

With the Early Payment Partnership, suppliers will benefit from:

improved cash flow
greater visibility across the Council
reduced time spent chasing payments

How does the EPP work

Suppliers sign up to a participation agreement that details the terms.
Suppliers agree to a rebate rate which is applied as the invoice is paid.
The rebate is proportionate to the number of days the Council accelerate the payment by.
The Council will target to pay those suppliers who participate on day 10.
The rebate is only applied if the invoice is paid earlier than 30 days from the day the invoice is received as undisputed.

To find out more about the programme visit Oxygen Finance - Leicestershire or email leicestershire@oxygen-finance.com.

Purchase to Pay

Purchase Order (PO)

From April 2024 Leicestershire County Council will be implementing a hard line with No Purchase Order = No payment. We will be turning on an automated validation of invoices and failure to include a valid Purchase Order number on your invoice, which is clearly displayed in a named field in the header of the invoice, will result in your invoice being rejected back to you, requesting alteration and resubmission. Only when your invoice is displaying a valid purchase order number, can it be accepted.

Suppliers and Organisations providing goods, works and services to LCC must obtain a valid Purchase Order number in advance of the service or goods delivery, which must be included clearly on the supplier invoice.

To obtain a PO please contact the service area or officer who has placed the order with you directly. It is the responsibility of the service area to ensure a valid contract is in place and ensure Purchase Orders are created in line with the contract deliverables.

Submitting invoices

You must email your invoice directly to leicsinvoices@emss.org.uk

Do not send your invoices direct to Leicestershire County Council services or specific officers, as this will delay the invoice reaching our payment system and payment of the invoice will be delayed.

If you have been asked to provide a copy or send direct, you can carbon copy (cc) the officer into the email to leicsinvoices@emss.org.uk

Payment terms calculation trigger date

For any undisputed invoice, the date a valid invoice is received by the council’s invoice scanning solution, will be the date recorded in the council’s accounts payable system as the invoice received date.

This date will be the trigger to calculate the payment terms – so, it's important that you send your invoice direct to leicsinvoices@emss.org.uk

For suppliers who do not sign up to our Early Payment Partnership, undisputed invoices that are validated and approved will be processed for payment on the last day of the supplier payment terms, calculated from the invoice received date.

Electronic payment

Leicestershire County Council is operating an electronic only payment system. Our electronic payment vehicle is via the Bankers Automated Clearing System (BACS). Suppliers will receive BACS payment 3 working days inclusively from the invoice payment date.

Guidance and support for invoices

Contact the Finance Service Centre:

Log a ticket: Support Portal | EMSS
Phone: 0300 303 0222 (Option 1)
Email: financeservicedesk@emss.org.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.

Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement 2022-23 PDF, 186.45 KB Opens new window

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 us. The purpose of the code 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 Code of Conduct PDF, 445.07 KB Opens new window

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.

Terms of usage - supplier portal PDF, 106.54 KB Opens new window

To gain access to the Portal:

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

If you're a new supplier you'll be able to request access during the Supplier Registration, to which you will be invited by a Council contact.

Further information

Relating to east Mids Tenders

New suppliers and accessing opportunities

We use the East Mids Tenders (procurement portal) to conduct all of our procurement exercises.

The 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're 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 on this site. Once the registration process is completed, you'll have access to opportunities being let by Leicestershire County Council, which you may wish to express interest in.

The 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

Any correspondence issued to your organisation though the portal will be sent to 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 through 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

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.

Opens new windo

Technical queries

The East Midl Tenders (procurement 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 experience any problems or require help, please read the reference guides available on the portal. If you still require support, please contact the Due North technical support team by emailing procontractsuppliers@proactis.com which will auto-log a support ticket in the Proactis Supplier Support Helpdesk.

On logging a ticket, if you've not already logged one before, you'll be issued with a registration email that will give you instructions on how 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. 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 through the messaging function.

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.

Invoice queries

Invoices and credit notes provides information on how to submit an invoice or a credit note to the Council.

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