Contractors must advertise 2012 work to new subbies

Contractors on the 2012 Olympics will be contractually bound to advertise deals to new subcontractors where they do not have an established supply chain partner.

The move is part of the Olympic Delivery Authority's (ODA) push to ensure smaller firms have access to work on the Games.

Speaking at the Thames Gateway Forum last week, the ODA's head of procurement, Morag Stuart, said that it would be launching the initiative on its website next year to allow companies to register and part-qualify for working with Tier 1 contractors.

While she acknowledged contractors would be likely to use established supply chain partners, she said the ODA believed there would be around 50,000 contracts that were outside the Tier 1 contracts, and that around 30% of those opportunities would be advertised on the ODA website.

She said: "We will be working with Tier 1 contractors and looking at how much of the supply chain is open for business. We know 70% to 80% of it is already intact, but we are asking Tier 1 contractors to put all additional opportunities onto this system. We think there should be 5,000 to 10,000 contracts on there."

Explaining the system, Mike Mulvey from the London Business Network said it would give buyers "business intelligence and a bigger supplier base".

Buyers for Tier 1 contractors will be able to specify up to 25 standard and 25 free questions they would like potential suppliers to answer.

He said: "Private sector buyers can decide who they want to deal with, but if a buyer is consistently taking a company out of the system, or if a group of buyers are doing that we will want to know what the problem is."

The move comes after Constructing Excellence last week revealed 49% of delegates at its 2012 Commitments UK roadshow said they were "unsure how to engage" when bidding for Olympic work. It also found 5% of delegates saw the project's high profile as a barrier to bidding, while 9% said they were too busy with other work.

A pilot version of the scheme can be found at the CompeteFor website.