To coincide with the Procurement Act coming into force this week, which has introduced significant changes to public sector procurement, Build UK has published an updated version of the Common Assessment Standard to ensure that it remains relevant and up to date for use by public sector clients and their suppliers.
Version 4.1 includes minor updates to the question set and associated guidance to reflect the requirements of the Procurement Act, as well as the changes to company size thresholds from 1 April. Suppliers will be required to complete the updated question set when they next go through the certification process for the Common Assessment Standard with a Recognised Assessment Body.
The new Procurement Specific Questionnaire, which has been published for use by public sector clients under the Procurement Act, confirms at paragraph 45 that the Common Assessment Standard should continue to be used for pre‐qualifying suppliers for ‘works’ contracts. It also states that where possible, public sector clients should “avoid requiring Common Assessment Standard certified suppliers to re‐input their information”, which will reduce duplication for the supply chain even further.