The Public Service Obligations in Transport Regulations 2023

PART 4 Publication requirements

Pre-award publication

22.—(1) Each competent authority must, for each public service contract, unless either of the circumstances in paragraph (3) apply, and subject to paragraph (6), take the necessary measures to ensure that at least one year before the relevant day, the following information is published on its website—

(a) the name and address of the competent authority,

(b) the type of award proposed,

(c) the services and geographical area proposed to be covered by the award, and

(d) the proposed start date and duration of the public service contract.

(2) In this regulation, “the relevant day” means—

(a) in the case of a direct award, the day on which the public service contract is entered into;

(b) in the case of a competitive tendering procedure, the earlier of—

(i) the day on which a final version of the invitation to tender is published on the competent authority’s website, or

(ii) the day on which a final version of the invitation to tender is issued to one or more suppliers.

(3) The competent authority may decide not to publish this information where—

(a) a public service contract concerns an annual provision of less than 50,000 kilometres of public passenger transport services, or

(b) a contract is awarded under regulation 16 (emergency measures).

(4) If the competent authority becomes aware that any of the information it published under paragraph (1) is, or has become, erroneous or inaccurate, it must publish a rectification on its website as soon as possible.

(5) Publication of a rectification under paragraph (4) does not affect a competent authority’s compliance with the publication requirement in paragraph (1).

(6) A competent authority’s duty to comply with paragraph (1) (requirement to publish a year before the relevant day) is not enforceable under Part 5 of these Regulations (enforcement), where the information is published before the relevant day, and—

(a) where the publication concerns a direct award, the timing of that publication is sufficient to achieve the purpose stated in paragraph (7)(a);

(b) where the publication concerns a competitive tendering procedure—

(i) that failure does not cause an interested supplier a significant disadvantage compared to an incumbent, and

(ii) the timing of that publication is sufficient to achieve the purpose stated in paragraph (7)(b).

(7) The purpose of the pre-award publication is—

(a) in the case of a direct award, to enable an interested party to raise objections to the principle of making a direct award as intended by the competent authority before the award is made, but the purpose does not include providing all of the information that is necessary to enable the submission of an offer nor does it include enabling any comparative assessment of offers;

(b) in the case of a competitive tendering procedure, to give a supplier a period of time to prepare for the invitation to tender that is sufficient to enable it to take part effectively in that procedure.

(8) In this regulation, “an incumbent” means the public service operator (if any) performing an existing public service contract in respect of the services and areas referred to in paragraph (1)(c).

Post-award publication and right to request reasons for direct award

23.—(1) A competent authority must, while ensuring the protection of commercially sensitive information and commercial interests, publish on its website such of the information about any public service contract or general rule set out in Schedule 2 as is relevant to that public service contract or general rule.

(2) The information referred to in paragraph (1) must be published before the end of the period of two months beginning with the day on which the authority enters into the contract or makes the rule.

(3) When requested by an interested party within one month beginning with the day on which the competent authority publishes information about the public service contract as required by paragraph (1), the competent authority must forward to it the reasons for its decision for directly awarding a public service contract.