Limited Tender

A limited tender is a procurement where the buyer approaches one or more suppliers of its choosing rather than advertising openly. Above the threshold it is only permitted where a condition in the CPRs is met, for example when no submissions were received to an open approach, when only one supplier can meet the requirement for technical reasons, or in a genuine emergency. Below the threshold it is common and unremarkable. The resulting contract notice still names the method, which is why contract notice data shows how much of an agency's spend never reaches an open tender.