Rule 48:
Contract award notice
When an agency must publish a contract award notice and the information that must be included.
- An agency must publish a contract award notice on GETS when it has awarded a contract that is subject to the Rules. This Notice must be published whether or not the contract was openly advertised, unless it is:
- an opt-out procurement (Rule 12) or
- secondary procurement (Rule 14.9.i).
- An agency must publish the contract award notice on GETS within 30 business days of all parties signing the contract/s. The contract award notice must include:
- the agency’s name and address
- the successful supplier’s or suppliers’ name/s and address/s
- a description of the goods, services or works
- the date the contract/s was awarded
- the term of the contract/s
- the expected spend under the contract/s, or the highest and lowest offers the agency evaluated to award the contract
- the type of procurement process used
- if the agency claimed an exemption from open advertising (Rule 14), the circumstances that justify the exemption
- a New Zealand Business Number (NZBN) where available
- any other information, as requested by the Procurement Functional Leader, for example information on broader outcomes.
Open data
MBIE makes all contract award notice data publicly available. This is part of New Zealand’s commitment as a signatory of the Open Government Partnership.
Communicating contract award
Expected spend
The expected spend (Rule 48.2.f) under the contract could be the contract price, if this is fixed, or an estimate of the total value of the contract over its life. This information will not be required when publishing a contract award notice relating to the establishment of a panel of suppliers under Rule 57.
Keeping suppliers informed
It’s good practice to let participating suppliers know where they stand after evaluating the responses. You should tell suppliers when they have been unsuccessful.
However, in some instances you may want to keep competitive tension between the top ranking suppliers. If there is more than one supplier who is capable of delivering the contract, you may want to negotiate with the top-ranked supplier and reserve your position with the second-ranked supplier. If the negotiations with the top-ranked supplier fall through, you may then offer to negotiate with the next-ranked supplier. In this case, an agency can tell other highly-ranked suppliers that you are negotiating with the preferred supplier and, should negotiations fail, they may still be considered for the contract opportunity.