Lists of approved suppliers for construction, adult social care and children's services.
Approved lists for works information page.
Social care lists and works lists are the only Approved Lists now held by the council:
Approved Lists may only be open to new companies periodically or they may be rolling lists, which new companies can join at any time.
Companies wishing to join these lists must fulfil the council's criteria. It is the equivalent of passing the pre-qualification questionnaire phase of a restricted tender.
Being on an Approved List is no guarantee that you will get work. Unless tightly administered they can become so large that being on one is meaningless. This is why the council is moving towards using Framework Arrangements and restricted tenders (creating ad-hoc lists) instead.
The people who buy for the council are widely scattered throughout the council's many departments.
It is not economic to run a tender for every one-off small purchase. Below a threshold of £25,000, council officers may just obtain a number of competitive quotes in writing. Above that and below £75,000 we may do market research and then invite at least four companies to tender. We do not keep lists for this purpose (except in the above areas) as the admin costs would be excessive.