The UK public-procurement stack is more fragmented than it looks. A central portal for above-threshold notices, a central portal for the rest, plus a devolved portal for each of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. A bidder targeting UK-wide work watches all five.
What it is.The UK’s post-Brexit replacement for OJEU / TED notices. Where every UK-wide public-sector contract above the relevant threshold (broadly £138k-£139k services, £5.3m works at current rates) is published. Operated by the Cabinet Office.
Access pattern. Free to read, free to register, free to bid. Notices appear as standardised forms (under the Procurement Act 2023 these are eForms-derived structured notices) plus linked tender documents (PDF + Word) hosted by the contracting authority or on its e-procurement system.
How qlows works with FTS. Paste the FTS notice URL — qlows fetches the structured notice fields plus the linked tender document bundle. The structured fields (CPV code, estimated value, deadline, lots) populate the opportunity record directly; the bundle gets decomposed into requirements with page references. UK-specific compliance items (modern slavery statement, Carbon Reduction Plan PPN 06/21, social value MAC, Cyber Essentials) surface as their own matrix rows.
What it is. The UK central government portal for opportunities below the FTS threshold and for many above-threshold notices in addition to FTS. Run by the Cabinet Office. Heaviest source of SME-scale opportunities (£10k-£138k).
Access pattern. Free everything. RSS and API available, which makes alert-tooling easier than on most peers.
How qlows works with Contracts Finder. Identical to FTS — paste the URL, qlows pulls the linked ITT documents. Below-threshold notices tend to use lighter ITT formats (sometimes a single Word document with the spec + response template inline). qlows still produces the compliance grid, just shorter.
What it is. The single portal for every Scottish public-sector contract — central government, local authorities, NHS Scotland, Higher and Further Education, Scottish Police, Scottish Water. Operated by the Scottish Government. Includes the PCS-Tender e-procurement add-on for end-to-end response submission.
Access pattern. Free to read and bid. Registration optional for browsing, required for response submission. Tender documents hosted in PCS-Tender; structured Scottish-specific compliance forms (Single Procurement Document Scotland / SPD-S) attached to most ITTs.
How qlows works with PCS.Download the ITT + SPD-S from PCS-Tender. qlows extracts the requirements and pre-fills the SPD-S section-by-section as compliance matrix rows: each SPD-S question becomes a row with the required evidence and owner. The Scottish “Community Benefits” clauses get their own matrix section so the response addresses them explicitly.
Try qlows on a UK ITT
Drop an FTS or Contracts Finder notice into qlows and watch the SPD compliance grid build itself.
Currently in private beta. Bring a live UK ITT — we'll process the full bundle (including PPN attachments and SPD) and ship you the compliance grid.
Book a 30-min demo →What it is. The Welsh Government portal — single source for Welsh public-sector tenders. Operated by Welsh Government Procurement. Strong on local authority and NHS Wales opportunities.
Access pattern.Free to read, free to bid, registration required for response submission. Tender documents hosted directly on Sell2Wales or linked to the contracting authority’s e-procurement system.
How qlows works with Sell2Wales.Pull the ITT bundle. Welsh tenders frequently require Welsh-language response capability and reference the Well-being of Future Generations Act — qlows captures those as discrete compliance rows so they don’t get glossed over in the response.
What it is. The Northern Ireland procurement portal — operated by the Construction and Procurement Delivery (CPD) within the Department of Finance. Single source for NI public-sector tenders across central government, NHS, education, and local councils.
Access pattern. Free. Registration required to express interest, view the full ITT, and submit. Notices use the eEvaluation Suite — structured response forms plus attachment uploads.
How qlows works with eTendersNI. Download the ITT bundle once registration grants access. qlows decomposes it into compliance grid rows mapped one-to-one to the eEvaluation response sections — so when you copy drafted answers back into the portal the structure already matches.
UK ITTs share a small set of recurring compliance items that qlows flags by default across all five portals:
- Single Procurement Document (SPD) — self-certification of grounds for exclusion + selection criteria. SPD-S in Scotland, SPD in England/Wales/NI.
- PPN-driven attachments — Carbon Reduction Plan (PPN 06/21), Cyber Essentials evidence (PPN 09/23), Modern Slavery (PPN 02/23).
- Social Value Model — MAC 1.1 through MAC 5.1, weighted 10% of evaluation on central-government contracts.
- UK-specific accreditations— Constructionline, CHAS, SafeContractor — most often surfaced as “or equivalent” rows.
qlows surfaces each of these as discrete matrix rows so the response addresses them by name. The portals change; the compliance ground changes more slowly; the workflow stays the same.