Tender

SCAPE tenders eight billion pound framework across three nations

By Staff Writer  |  26 August 2026

SCAPE Procure Limited has put a construction works and services framework to the market with a stated value of 8,000,000,000 pounds excluding value added tax and 9,600,000,000 pounds including it. The notice was published on 25 August 2026 at 8:28am under the identifier 080600-2026 and covers England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The framework is divided into five lots. Lot 1 is England, construction works and services, at 4,000,000,000 pounds. Lot 2 is England, residential construction works and services covering decarbonisation, retrofit, repair and maintenance, at 2,000,000,000 pounds. Lot 3 is Wales, construction, housing, works and services, at 1,000,000,000 pounds. Lot 4 is Northern Ireland for values from zero to 15,000,000 pounds, at 250,000,000 pounds. Lot 5 is Northern Ireland for values above 10,000,000 pounds, at 750,000,000 pounds. The five lot values add to the framework total exactly.

Fifteen supplier places are on offer, three on each lot, and the notice sets a maximum framework duration of six years. The award period ends on 19 July 2027, so the competition as published runs for close to eleven months from the date of the notice.

The turnover thresholds decide who can bid

Each lot carries a minimum annual turnover requirement for the supplier and its associated suppliers. It is 150,000,000 pounds on Lot 1, 75,000,000 pounds on Lot 2, 75,000,000 pounds on Lot 3, 20,000,000 pounds on Lot 4 and 75,000,000 pounds on Lot 5. Those figures do more to shape the field than the lot values do. A contractor turning over 60,000,000 pounds a year is outside every lot except the smaller Northern Ireland one, whatever its record on the work described.

The two Northern Ireland lots are split by contract value rather than by type of work, at zero to 15,000,000 pounds on Lot 4 and above 10,000,000 pounds on Lot 5. The bands overlap between 10,000,000 and 15,000,000 pounds, and the notice does not say how a call-off falling inside that overlap is allocated. That is the sort of question which is cheap to ask before tender and expensive to argue afterwards.

How the competition runs

The procedure is a selective competitive flexible procedure. For each lot, the notice states that the five highest scoring bidders at the participation stage will be shortlisted and invited to tender. Three places are available on each lot, so on the published numbers a bidder that reaches the shortlist is competing for three places out of five.

The notice records that a conflicts assessment has been prepared under section 83 of the Procurement Act 2023 and that it will be updated and revised at each future stage of the procurement where appropriate. Work is performed under the framework agreement together with a delivery agreement executed in accordance with that agreement, so the framework document itself is not the contract under which the work is carried out.

Contract performance is to be monitored using a set of performance indicators, which the notice does not list. The buyer states that it intends to design the framework so that smaller firms are brought in through the successful bidder's supply chain, and that it will accept bids from consortia or joint ventures of which smaller firms may form a part.

What the notice leaves open

No form of building contract is named for call-offs and no payment mechanism is given. Nothing is published about how work is shared between the three suppliers on a lot, whether by direct selection, by rotation or by further competition, and that single point decides what a place on the framework is worth. There is no minimum volume commitment either: the eight billion pound figure is a ceiling for the framework and not a promise of work to anybody appointed to it.

The fifteen places are three on each of five lots. The notice does not say whether one supplier may hold places on more than one lot, so fifteen places may not mean fifteen different companies. Responses go through the buyer's own eSourcing portal, and the questions worth asking are the ones asked before the participation stage closes rather than after appointment.