Following months of discussions with the European Commission, the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) is pushing for the implementation of simpler rules for procurement in this country.

Responding today to a Cabinet Office consultation on the new EU proposals, NCVO pushed for adoption of a range of measures to make the rules simpler for social service delivery.

These include:

Increasing the threshold for exemptions from procurement rules for social service contracts up to 500,000 Euro; this would enable many smaller organisations to access funds with a much lower administrative burden. However, it is important that wider social clauses are not lost from these contracts.

Offering incentives to divide large tenders into smaller lots which would enable smaller organisations to make use of public contracts.

Clarifying the options on the proposed ‘Innovation Partnerships’ which would encourage organisations to develop new solutions for public good through staged payments for projects.

Ben Kernighan, deputy chief executive of NCVO, said: "We are glad to see the UK government taking forward ways to improve and simplify the EU rules that have often been open to misunderstanding in this country.

"These measures go some way to reducing the administrative burden on smaller organisations and will encourage greater opportunities for voluntary sector bodies to provide innovative social services.

"We would also be keen to see simpler information on how these rules will be applied across the country."

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