As a member of Homes and Communities Agency national property panel, specialist Bruton Knowles teams across  the UK are well positioned to provide the full range of property services to public sector bodies.  

Homes and Communities Agency has procured a wide range of consultant panels, which can also be used by its external partners, to access consultant services directly without undertaking a full OJEC procurement process. These panels therefore remove the need for procurers to go through the European Union competitive tendering process, an often long winded system which involves tendering through the Official Journal of the European Union and gaining expressions of interest before picking a winning bidder.

Over 100 local authorities have now signed up to using the panels for procuring services from pre-approved consultants.

Organisations and public bodies signed up include:

• Basildon Renaissance
• Bristol City Council
• East of England Development Agency
• Hull Gateway
• Leicestershire County Council
• English Heritage
• London Thames Gateway
• Nottingham Regeneration
• Olympic Development Agency
• Leeds City Council

The panels collectively offer a wide range of technical and property services that are specifically relevant to regeneration projects in England. Bruton Knowles as a panel member has been subject to a rigorous two-stage process of selection to ensure the firm has the experience and expertise to deliver the services covered by the property panel. 

The process by which external partners can use Homes and Communities Agency panels is straightforward.  Partners can request form Homes and Communities Agency an initial information pack, which answers all frequently asked questions. If they wish to proceed with using Homes and Communities Agency panels  they will be asked to sign up to an agreement with Homes and Communities Agency, which makes procurement of services through the panels and management of panel consultants the responsibility of the partner organisation. Once this agreement is in place Homes and Communities Agency will issue, in electronic format, detailed information on the  panels, including contact details for the relevant panel members, tendered rates and full schedules of service.

Angus Mylles, head of public sector at Bruton Knowles, comments on the benefits of this form of procurement: Any measures which help local authorities and public  sector bodies build in flexibility and improve the speed  with which property advisors can be appointed has to be welcomed. All bodies can benefit; from smaller authorities who may not have specialist in-house  resources, to larger bodies which are seeking to  benefit from economies of scale by outsourcing  more of their property functions. As awareness of  these panels grow, we anticipate more and more  public sector bodies will sign up to these flexible  procurement routes.

For more details, please speak to Angus Mylles at Bruton Knowles on 01452 880109 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it