How Public Construction Frameworks Work

A contractor watching the public tender portals for construction work will notice that a lot of it never appears there as a single contract. Councils, housing providers, schools, health bodies and government departments often award their building work through frameworks: arrangements set up in advance with a group of contractors, from which individual jobs are then awarded.

For a contractor, that changes the shape of the opportunity. The tender that matters most may not be the job. It may be the framework, which comes round once every few years.

What a framework is#

Under the Procurement Act 2023, a framework is “a contract between a contracting authority and one or more suppliers that provides for the future award of contracts” to those suppliers.

The framework itself must say what it covers, how prices are set, its estimated value, how contracts will be selected, how long it lasts, and which contracting authorities are entitled to use it. That last point explains why one construction framework can serve dozens or hundreds of public bodies: it is set up once, and every authority listed can award work through it.

How work is awarded under a framework#

There are two routes from a framework to an actual contract.

Two details are worth knowing.

Mini-competitions are scored on the framework's own criteria. Cabinet Office guidance says that in a competitive selection process, proposals “must be based only on some or all of the award criteria that were used to assess tenders when the framework was awarded”, although the criteria can be refined with sub-criteria. Reading the original framework criteria tells you a lot about how every future job will be scored.

Direct award needs an objective mechanism. The same guidance gives examples: a “taxi-rank” system that awards contracts in rotation, or a “highest ranking” system with a cap on how much any one supplier can win.

Getting on a framework#

You get on a framework by winning a place when the framework itself is procured. That procurement is a tender like any other, often a long one, with its own conditions of participation and award criteria.

Timing is the hard part. Under the Act, a framework may not last more than four years (eight for utilities and defence) unless the authority sets out why a longer term is needed. Miss the tender, and the next opportunity to join may be years away.

That makes advance notice valuable. The Home Office's SME/VCSE Bid Pack points to pipeline notices, which larger authorities publish each year listing planned procurements above £2 million, as a way to see opportunities coming.

Open frameworks reopen#

The Act also created open frameworks: a scheme of successive frameworks on substantially the same terms. An open framework must be reopened at least once in its first three years, and then at least once every five years, up to a maximum of eight years in total.

The important difference for smaller firms is that new suppliers can be added when it reopens. Cabinet Office guidance says open frameworks are particularly beneficial in markets with a large number of suppliers, “to avoid some suppliers being locked out for long periods of time”. If you missed the first round of an open framework, there will be another.

Being on a framework is not winning work#

A framework place is a licence to compete, not a contract. Buyers may never call off work from you, and mini-competitions can be as competitive as open tenders.

A few protections carry through to call-offs. When a buyer sets conditions for a contract under a framework, the Act repeats the familiar limits: no demand for audited accounts from suppliers not required to have them, and no requirement for contract insurance to be in place before award. Buyers also cannot require you to have already won a contract under the framework, or with a particular authority. So a new framework supplier is not disadvantaged for being new.

Fees#

Searches for framework fees are common, for good reason: many frameworks charge their suppliers a fee on the work they win. The Act allows a framework to provide for fees “at a fixed percentage of the estimated value of any contract awarded” to the supplier under it.

The percentage differs between frameworks and is set out in each framework's documents. Find it before you tender for a place, and price it into every call-off.

The supply-chain route#

Not every firm needs its own framework place. Framework contractors deliver much of their work through supply chains of sub-contractors and specialists: electrical, mechanical, fire and security, groundworks, finishes.

That route has its own pre-qualification, and increasingly it runs through the Common Assessment Standard. Build UK's list of organisations using the standard includes most of the major contractors, alongside framework providers such as Pagabo, SCAPE and YPO. For a specialist firm working through main contractors, a current CAS certificate can matter as much as a framework place.

Pagabo, Scape, Fusion21, LHC and the rest#

The names people search for most, such as Pagabo, Scape, Fusion21 and LHC, are framework providers. They set up frameworks that many public bodies can use. Each publishes its own lots, suppliers, fees and re-procurement dates, and those details change as frameworks expire and are re-let.

For any specific framework, the reliable sources are the provider's own published documents and its notices on Find a Tender. Check three things before you invest in a framework bid:

1. Scope and lots: which lot fits your work, size and region.
2. How call-offs are awarded: mini-competition, direct award, or both, and on what criteria.
3. The cost of being on it: the fee percentage, and the effort of each mini-competition.

Then treat the framework tender as what it is: a bid/no-bid decision for several years of opportunity, not for a single job.