Are there any legal requirements as to the procedure for procurement of PFI/PPP arrangements?
Fundamentally the procedure for procuring PFI/PPP projects is the same in Northern Ireland as it is in England and Wales. As mentioned above, the primary source of law on this subject is the Public Contracts Regulations 2006. The 2006 Regulations must be adhered to when procuring and in particular since they were first introduced in January 2006, the competitive dialogue procedure is now to be used to procure such circumstances save only in very exceptional circumstances where the project in question is too complex to be delivered using that procedure. In those circumstances (the example given by the Office of Government Commerce is the London Underground PPP), the negotiated procedure may once again be used.
