Public Procurement And The Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games (Video) – Government Contracts, Procurement & PPP

As the Official Legal Advisers to the Birmingham 2022
Commonwealth Games, our cross-practice team advised on a wide range
of complex legal projects to help bring the historic sporting event
to life. In this video, partner Robert Breedon discusses the public
procurement elements vital to the delivery of the Games.

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Transcript

Robert Breedon: Being the Official
Legal Advisers to the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games has been a
great opportunity for Gowling WLG to showcase its talents as a full
service law firm and in particular in relation to commercial
contracts and public procurement law.

So the Games is being organised by the Organising Committee, or
the OC as we call them, and the OC is a non-departmental public
body.

And as such it falls within the definition of a contracting
authority under both EU and UK public procurement law, and
therefore it falls within the scope of the public procurement
regulations.

So this means that when the Organising Committee is entering
into contracts for either goods, services or works, it needs to
advertise those opportunities and then run a fair and transparent
process.

That process is designed to identify the bidder that is best
placed to meet the OC’s requirements, both in terms of quality
and also price, but the regulations come with certain constraints
and limitations, including time limits in which bidders are allowed
to respond.

The type of questions that you can ask of bidders and how you
can evaluate bids fairly. The application of the public procurement
rules is considered by some to be unduly burdensome, even
bureaucratic. But really it’s the best way for the OC to be
able to demonstrate that it’s using public money and getting
the best value for money.

So the first challenge is the scale of the task, because there
are literally hundreds, if not thousands of contracts that need to
be entered into for the running of the Games. And in the case of
the OC, of course they had less time than normal since Birmingham
had stepped in at relatively short notice, following confirmation
that Durban were not hosting the 2022 Games.

There were other challenges too, not least of this is running a
whole series of procurements during a global pandemic. This was
heightened actually following the postponement of the Tokyo Summer
Olympics 2020, leading to some speculation that the Birmingham 2022
Commonwealth Games might in turn be postponed. And of course that
creates great uncertainty for both the OC and its planning, but
also for bidders who are looking to provide the goods and services
involved.

Overall, the application of public procurement law did bring an
added layer of complexity, which was not experienced by previous
organising committees.

But the application of those same rules brought an important
discipline and rigour to the process, which gives the public
increased confidence that public funds are driving value for money.
And I’d say that the legal and procurement teams of the OC,
they really rose to the task in dealing with public procurement law
and indeed in addressing all of the other challenges that were
thrown at them.

So looking back, I think it’s been a great experience for
the Commercial and the Procurement team to be involved in something
which has had some real additional complexities to it and to have
worked in the context of what is frankly a once in a lifetime
opportunity to support an event such as the Games.

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