The power to settle financial complaints.
The power to settle financial complaints.
The Financial Ombudsman Service buys a range of goods and services. The information here explains how we carry out procurement. It is intended primarily for current and potential suppliers to the service.
The Financial Ombudsman Service is a “contracting authority” under The Public Contracts Regulations 2006. This means that all contracts for relevant goods or services in excess of the values below are subject to the EU procurement directives:
| supplies | services | works | |
|---|---|---|---|
| other public sector contracting authorities | £156,442 (€193,000) |
£156,442
(€193,000) |
£3,927,260 (€4,845,000) |
Almost all procurement contracts for business worth more than an EU limit must be published in the daily supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU). An electronic version of the journal (called TED) is available free of charge online.
Some of our purchases are made using other government department framework-agreements – set up in compliance with the EU procurement directives, following a formal competitive tendering-process.
We use an e-Sourcing portal – a web-based application hosted by Delta e-sourcing. This method provides a simple, secure and efficient way of managing the tendering process.
E-procurement helps the Financial Ombudsman Service and suppliers alike by:
We have made the following commitments in relation to procurement and contracting:
We have a process in place for sourcing and selecting tenderers for goods, services and works. We identify suppliers from a number of sources, depending on the value and complexity of the procurement. These sources include:
Launched in January 2010, the online procurement course, winning the contract, is a free resource – aimed at helping businesses learn about public procurement and how to bid for public-sector contracts. The course is available on the Business Link website.
The course introduces businesses to the key procurement processes, including:
The course also includes case studies, hints and tips.
As a consumer of goods and services, we recognise our responsibility to the environment – and to ensuring that our suppliers have fair and ethical labour policies.
As part of that responsibility, we expect all our suppliers to understand and agree with our equality and diversity policy and to share our commitment to our diversity and equality action plan.
For more information, please contact our procurement team.