Over 700 approved suppliers now enjoy the benefits of a relationship with LUPC:

• LUPC framework agreements are well-recognised in the higher education sector as having undergone a rigorous evaluation process by experienced procurement and technical professionals
• A Senior Category Manager is assigned to each framework agreement to provide management and a single point of contact for suppliers
• We work with our suppliers to jointly promote our framework agreements through our website, publications and special events
• As we work closely with other consortia, opportunities often arise to expand the framework agreement nationally
• We are always adding new members to our consortium, as reflected in the continued growth of our total spend.

Marketing to LUPC Members

The following information is available on becoming an approved LUPC supplier:

• A Guide to assist you in marketing to LUPC members
• Appropriate logo files to be used in marketing the approved agreement
• A list of appropriately verified LUPC contacts for approved suppliers to use

Please contact: Suzanne Picken

Become a Supplier

Owing to the high spend potential for LUPC's supply agreements, we are required to competitively tender all our framework agreements and contracts following the Public Contracts Regulations. Our process ensures that suppliers are capable of serving all of LUPC’s members and, for national contracts, across the UK higher education sector, with a high standard of quality and service and a commitment to competitive pricing. As a result, the tender process can take a period of six months or even longer.

It is mandatory, under the Public Contracts Regulations, for all contracting authorities, like LUPC, to advertise all their tender opportunities, over a set value, on the government’s Find A Tender Service.

This information is already available freely to you, in the public domain, and you do not need to part with any money to access that information.

To see current tenders available, via a searchable list, you can look at https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Search. You have the option to register (for free) to save your search so that you can easily retrieve information on a product or service regularly in the future.

Additionally, and simultaneously with the above, Contracting Authorities use electronic tendering portals to manage their tender process, from publication to award. Via these sites, you can also access all the tender information and most (if you are registered) will alert you directly when a new tender is available.

LUPC uses the Mercell UK's e-Sourcing Solution. We encourage all suppliers seeking to do business with LUPC to register with Mercell UK under every business category you are interested in, as only these will be notified through the Mercell UK portal of a relevant tender opportunity. It is the supplier’s responsibility to ensure that all contact details within the Mercell UK system are kept up to date under each relevant business category. Once registered and logged in, go into the Account Administration area to select the given CPV (Common Procurement Vocabulary) codes that are pertinent to your business to receive and manage business alerts via the Manage Business Alerts function.

We recommend that you register with a generic email address, if possible, so the contact details are not out of date when staff leave.

Register with us via Mercell UK

We suggest you take time to look at the guidance below before registering.

Please note that registering alone does not mean you are a supplier to LUPC members. It does not enable you to sell to our members as an ‘approved’ supplier; companies may only do so once they have successfully been awarded a contract with LUPC following a full tender competiton.

Whilst LUPC shares a number of its framework agreements reciprocally with other UK higher education purchasing consortia, we do not tender all of these framework agreements ourselves. You will need to register with the relevant tendering organisation to be kept up to date on the next tender opportunity, as we do not share the same registration portal for suppliers. Please check the 'Co-ordinating body' against each framework agreement on our website; other consortia contact details can be found here.

Additional Considerations

• Please note, we are unable to add suppliers on to framework agreements mid-term; you will need to take part in the next tender process (normally every four years) and to be successfully awarded a contract with LUPC to become an ‘approved’ supplier.
• LUPC tenders and manages framework agreements for our members to call off individual contracts – our members are entirely independent in their purchasing decisions, and are under no obligation to use LUPC framework agreements. LUPC can only recommend approved suppliers under our framework agreements to members; the final decision to contract a supplier rests with the member.