Direct award

Direct awards are contracts awarded without running a full competitive process. You choose your supplier by applying simple selection criteria and award them the contract. 

On the Buying Catalogue users can:

• filter by capabilities or contracting vehicle
• check that the solution appears under the correct contracting vehicle

If a solution is not listed, it cannot be awarded directly through this route. 

There are 2 common scenarios:

1. Practices that are not sure which solution they need. They will usually filter by capabilities or contracting vehicles to explore the available options. 
2. Practices that already know which solution they want. For example, an extension of an existing product. In this case, they can go straight to that solution and check it is listed under the right contracting vehicle.

The direct award route is usually quick and can be completed in a few hours.

The teams or organisations who might be involved in this include:

• integrated care boards (ICBs) or GP practices
• procurement lead and finance approver
• supplier

You can skip some pre-procurement steps, but it’s good practice to first:

• define your needs
• evaluate solutions using price and non price criteria
• confirm funding
• check local approvals

Check your ICB’s procurement policy to make sure these reasons are acceptable.

Evaluating based on price and non price criteria

If you are evaluating a solution the criteria can be based on either: 

• Price only 
  Use this approach when price is the only factor and there are no quality differences to assess. The weighting for this would be 100%. 
   
• Price and quality 
  Using both price and quality provides a more comprehensive assessment of value for money. You can vary the ratio between the price and quality to convey the most important things you want the solution to deliver.  

Evaluating solutions 

If you are evaluating solutions based on price and non price criteria: 

• identify which non price criteria you will be evaluating from. For example, you could score the solution based on features, system interoperability or implementation needs
• identify your requirements for the non price criteria you will be evaluating 
• decide your weightings for the price and non price criteria you will be evaluating; 
  • price weighting must be between 50% - 90% 
  • non price weighting must be between 10% - 50% 
• identify who will be involved in scoring the solution 

Once you have checked your suitability and completed all the above steps you will need to:

• complete your direct award (follow running a direct award)