Expand criteria for listing bodies not subject to FOI or similar access to information laws to include bodies subject to the Public Contracts Regulations 2015

Generally we list bodies which are subject the Freedom of Information Acts and/or the Environmental Information Regulations.

We also list some bodies which are not subject to those access to information laws, on the basis we think they should be. Our public policy on the addition of these additional bodies is at

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/help/requesting#authorities

We regularly have users who are wanting to make requests relating to the letting of public sector contracts which are subject to the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 and so are publicly advertised. Not all contracting bodies listed on public sector procurement websites such as https://www.gov.uk/contracts-finder or https://www.gov.uk/find-tender are listed on WhatDoTheyKnow.com so we get asked to add new bodies to enable these requests to be made via our system. The bodies we are asked to consider adding are typically companies.

The Public Contracts Regulations 2015 appears to cover:

"State, regional or local authorities, bodies governed by public law or associations formed by one or more such authorities or one or more such bodies governed by public law, and includes central government authorities, but does not include Her Majesty in her private capacity;"

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2015/102/regulation/2/made

That's different from the definition of a public body in FOI or EIR.

This ticket is for consideration of expanding the scope of our criteria for listing public bodies as covering bodies "governed by public law", following the definition in the Public Contracts Regulations 2015.

The test set by the European Union Court of Justice for coming within scope of that definition reportedly was:

it has legal personality;
it has been established for the specific purpose of meeting needs in the general interest which do not have an industrial or commercial character; and
it is financed for the most part, or controlled, by the State, regional or local authorities, or any other body governed by public law.

https://brodies.com/insights/public-law-and-regulation/when-do-public-procurement-rules-apply-to-private-entities-and-specifically-to-sport-governing-bodies/

In some cases we cannot see why a company is being listed as a contracting body on eg. the Government Contracts Finder website. We probably shouldn't use presence on such a website alone as our criteria for listing. It would be useful to know what, if any, criteria there are for an organisation being able to post tenders on the Government's contract finder / finder a tender website.

mysociety / whatdotheyknow-theme

Expand criteria for listing bodies not subject to FOI or similar access to information laws to include bodies subject to the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 #985