Procurement in a Nutshell: Involve Visual Collaboration Ltd v The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2026] EWHC 2209 (TCC)

Case facts

The claimant, Involve Visual Collaboration, was the incumbent provider of audio-visual services and they brought a claim under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015, challenging DWP’s decision to exclude it from the competition and ultimately award the contract to Accenture (UK).

In the initial moderation meeting the evaluators agreed a score of 7 out of 10 for that question, but one of the evaluators had severe reservations and it was agreed to re-open the moderation and as a result the score was dropped to 1, which did not meet the DWP’s minimum threshold. In that re-moderation one of the evaluators introduced extraneous material, comprising screenshots and a presentation in order to evidence his technical explanation of the weaknesses in the tender.

DWP excluded the claimant from the procurement on the basis that they had failed to achieve the minimum threshold score for Question 6.4 in the “Technical Envelope”, with the consequence that the “Commercial Envelope” submitted was not marked.

The claimant argued that if their bid has not been excluded and its Commercial Envelope evaluated, it would have been the most economically advantageous tender. However, DWP argued that the claimant was excluded on valid grounds.

DWP defended the claim by telling the court that the claimant’s response to Question 6.4 involved “URL masking” which did not meet the requirement. DWP also argued that the claimant would have been excluded in any event, for failure to comply with its conflicts of interest obligations as an incumbent provider, in that there was participation in the detailed bid assembly by senior managers, contrary to mitigation measures agreed with DWP.

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Held

• DWP’s decision to re-moderate the score for Question 6.4 was not in breach of the principle of transparency and/or manifestly erroneous.
• DWP was in breach of the principle of transparency due to the use of extraneous material to evaluate the claimant’s proposal during the re-moderation but that breach had no effect on the outcome of the re-moderation or the procurement and caused no loss to the claimant.
• DWP’s determination in the re-moderation that the URL masking was not capable of meeting the requirements of Question 6.4 was not manifestly erroneous.
• The score awarded to the claimant for Question 6.4 on re-moderation was not manifestly erroneous.
• DWP was entitled to and would have to reject the claimant’s tender for failing to comply with the conflict of interest rules in the ITT and agreed mitigation measures
• The claimant was not entitled to any damages, save for the that DWP was in breach of the principles of transparency by referring to the extraneous material in the re-moderation.

For further information please contact Tim Care or Melanie Pears in our Public Sector team.