Contract Award Notices: Publication Obligations and Timelines

Contracting authorities must publish a Contract Award Notice within 30 days of concluding a contract above the EU thresholds. This obligation is set out in Article 50 of Directive 2014/24/EU and Regulation 50 of S.I. 284/2016. The notice serves as the public record of the award decision, confirming who won the contract, the award price, and how many tenders were received.

The 30-day period runs from the date the contract is signed, not from the date of the award decision or the end of the standstill period. For framework call-offs, a quarterly reporting mechanism is available as an alternative to per-award notices, subject to the specific conditions in Regulation 50.

The Contract Award Notice must include: the name and address of the contracting authority; the subject, type and value of the contract; the procedure used and justification if the procedure was other than open or restricted; the number of tenders received; the name and address of the successful tenderer; the award criteria; and, where applicable, whether the contract can be sub-contracted.

For NPWPP awards, the notice must state the ground relied on (citing the specific regulation). For negotiated procedure awards, the notice must explain why competitive dialogue or innovative partnership was not used. The accuracy of the notice is important — errors can trigger challenges.

For contracts below the EU thresholds, the OGP does not require mandatory OJEU publication but does expect contracting authorities to publish an award notice on eTenders. For single-tender actions above €25,000, the OGP's Circular 16/2014 requires a notification report to be submitted to the authority's internal sanction body, which is separate from the eTenders publication obligation.

Below-threshold framework call-offs do not normally require individual award notices where the framework agreement itself was competed and published. However, the contracting authority's internal procurement file must record the basis for selecting the framework supplier and the value of the call-off.

Failure to publish a Contract Award Notice within 30 days of contract signature is a breach of S.I. 284/2016. The C&AG notes late and missing award notices as a recurrent finding in its procurement audit reports. While late publication does not, of itself, invalidate the contract, it is a transparency failure that suggests broader weaknesses in the authority's procurement administration.

GovIQ generates the Contract Award Notice template from the procurement file data and triggers a reminder at day 25 post-signature if the notice has not yet been published. This automated prompt prevents the 30-day deadline from being missed during busy operational periods.