One panel, worth £320m, covers general legal advice services, while the other, worth £90m, covers finance and highly complex transactions.

The panel for general legal advice is expected to be made up of around 18 ‘full service commercial law firms’. The successful firms will not pitch for specific lots, but instead are required to demonstrate that they can advise on a minimum of 24 mandatory specialist areas, including public law, competition and EU, construction, data protection/FOIA, employment, insurance, litigation and tax. They will also be required to provide end to end advice and support on public procurement matters including process structure, documentation, drafting, criteria and negotiation.

The anticipated maximum number of providers to be appointed to the finance and complex transactions panel is ten; potential members will again be expected to demonstrate expertise in certain mandatory areas of law relevant to the panel. Successful firms will provide legal services ‘in connection with complex finance matters, capital markets, regulation, highly complex transactions, innovative and/or strategically important transformational change, including major or complex projects, and mergers and acquisitions.’

Those on the panels will be eligible to receive contracts from all UK ministerial and non-ministerial departments, their associated executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies.

During the tendering process the CCS will hold several ‘bidder engagement events’, which will occur before the application deadline on 29 April. The anticipated start date for these two new panels is late November 2016 and they are expected to last four years. Sources: The Lawyer; Public Law Today