The buyers that spoiled Christmas 2020

Welcome to our annual run down of the buyers that are most likely to spread misery for suppliers at Christmas. Here are the buyers that are publishing tenders that require a supplier to respond either in the last days before Christmas or within the first working week of January.

This year, the British Council has pipped DEFRA to top spot with twenty three individual tenders that require responses after the 22nd of December and before the 10th of January. DEFRA deserves an honourable mention here, in 2018 they let 66 tenders over the Christmas holidays. Having reduced their number to a mere twenty is clearly progress; albeit of a kind.

Although this feels like a trivial matter, it is no surprise that these tenders will receive far fewer bids than other tenders and are therefore more likely to be more expensive and deliver poor outcomes.

If you want good contractors, do a little to make their lives easier.