A Bill to make provision to enhance the protection available for bat habitats in the vicinity of a building site and to limit the protection for bat habitats in buildings used for public worship
Link: Bat Habitats Regulation
Source: Public Bills
House of Lords
A Bill to restrict membership of the House of Lords by virtue of a peerage; to make related provision about disqualifications for voting at elections to, and for membership of, the House of Commons; and for connected purposes
Link: House of Lords
Source: Public Bills
Succession to Peerages
A Bill to amend the law regarding the succession to Peerages; and for connected purposes
Link: Succession to Peerages
Source: Public Bills
Press release: Public procurers learn how to spot bid-rigging
Updated: incorrect email removed
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) have worked together to create the e-learning module which will help more than 4,000 central government procurers root out attempts to win contracts through anti-competitive conduct.
In 2013/14 the UK public sector spent £242 billion on procurement of goods and services. Evidence suggests that cartels – of which bid-rigging forms a part – overcharge by up to 30%, costing taxpayers millions of pounds and leading to poor service.
John Kirkpatrick, CMA Senior Director Research, Intelligence and Advocacy, said:
It is vital that taxpayers’ money is spent well on projects that are of benefit to the public, rather than costs being pushed up unfairly by bid-rigging. We hope this bid-rigging e-learning package will prove to be a very useful tool for procurers in helping them spot and prevent attempts to rig procurement processes.
The CMA has a hotline which people can call if they suspect cases of bid-rigging or other anti-competitive practices, so I urge anyone with doubts to call.
Ian Mackie, CCS Head of Commercial Learning and Development, said:
Increasing commercial capability is a priority skills area for the civil service, so we, along with our departmental colleagues, were delighted to work with CMA to support this learning module. Hosting this on the Civil Service Learning Commercial College will enhance the contract management learning already available to staff.
Bid-rigging involves competing businesses which are invited to bid in competitive tenders secretly colluding so that, contrary to appearances, they are not fully competing for the contract. Bid-rigging tends to drive up prices by removing genuine competition between bidders.
It is a serious infringement of competition law, which can lead to fines and liability to damages for the companies involved. It can also result in criminal sanctions (including possible imprisonment) for individuals.
The e-learning module can be found on the Commercial College, hosted on Civil Service Learning.
The module, which is intended to take no more than 40 minutes to complete, will help students to gain an awareness of why bid-rigging is harmful, what kinds of activities and patterns of behaviour they should watch out for, what they can do to mitigate risks and where they can go to get help if they suspect a case.
Notes for editors
- The CMA is the UK’s primary competition and consumer authority. It is an independent non-ministerial government department with responsibility for carrying out investigations into mergers, markets and the regulated industries and enforcing competition and consumer law. For more information see the CMA’s homepage on GOV.UK. For CMA updates, follow us on Twitter @CMAgovuk, Flickr and LinkedIn.
- Please contact the cartels hotline on 0800 085 1664 or 020 3738 6888 or email cartelshotline@cma.gsi.gov.uk, if you suspect instances of bid-rigging.
- To learn more, look at CMA guidance ‘Bid-rigging: advice for public sector procurers’.
- For more information on the Crown Commercial Service see its webpages.
- Enquiries should be directed Simon Belgard (simon.belgard@cma.gsi.gov.uk, 020 3738 6472).
Link: Press release: Public procurers learn how to spot bid-rigging
Source: Gov Press Releases
Weekly Threat Report 27th October 2017
Bad Rabbit ransomware
This week, ‘Bad Rabbit’ ransomware infections have been reported in countries including Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Turkey, Germany and Japan. The NCSC has not received any reports that the UK has been affected by this latest malware attack. The majority of infections have been in Russia, where media organisations were worst affected. Russia’s Interfax News Agency suffered outages to several of its services, including its news portal….
Link: Weekly Threat Report 27th October 2017
Source: NCSC Reports
Weekly threat report 7th July 2017
Following reported attempts by hackers to compromise parliamentary email accounts in June, scammers have recently attempted to gain information by cold-calling (or vishing) MPs and their staff. Posing as staff from the Houses of Parliament’s IT department, the scammers have reportedly been requesting the usernames and passwords of MPs. Vishing, like its online equivalent, phishing, attempts to illicit sensitive information, such as passwords, or encourage victims to visit particular (…
Link: Weekly threat report 7th July 2017
Source: NCSC Reports
The Cyber Threat to UK Business
A new threat report, jointly written by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and the National Crime Agency (NCA), provides an in-depth analysis of the evolving threat, together with an overview of the practical steps the UK can take together.
Read the report
Link: The Cyber Threat to UK Business
Source: NCSC Reports
Weekly Threat Report 11th November 2016
Threat assessment and trend analysis
Old Tricks, New Bot
In September, the National Cyber Security Centre was made aware of a new banking Trojan called TrickBot, targeting the customers of online financial institutions in Australia and New Zealand. The latest version has added functionality and has primarily targeted the UK. Once infected, the attackers use web browser injects and redirection attacks to harvest banking credentials. TrickBot is distributed through both malvertising and spam…
Link: Weekly Threat Report 11th November 2016
Source: NCSC Reports
Weekly Threat Report 12th January 2018
Winter Olympics phishing campaign
The information security company, McAfee, recently identified spear-phishing activity targeting the February 2018 Winter Olympics due to be held in South Korea.
This highly tailored campaign was aimed at a number of South Korean organisations supporting the Games and made use of custom-made fileless malware and steganography. The phishing emails were written in the Korean language and purported to be from the South Korean National Counter Terrorism…
Link: Weekly Threat Report 12th January 2018
Source: NCSC Reports
Weekly Threat Report 4th May 2018
‘Orangeworm’ Group Targeting Healthcare Industry
Symantec have reported that a group they have tracked as ‘Orangeworm’ since 2015 are targeting the healthcare industry in the United States, Asia and Europe, including the UK.
40% of their attacks focus on the healthcare industry. Other industries targeted are either closely related to healthcare or part of the supply chain, including IT, manufacturing, logistics and agriculture. It is likely that the supply chain has been…
Link: Weekly Threat Report 4th May 2018
Source: NCSC Reports