Public Procurement Consultancy for Charities, Housing Associations and Education Providers

Helping public and third sector clients navigate procurement with confidence

Many charities, housing associations and education providers are delivering vital public services, yet face significant challenges when it comes to procurement. With limited internal capacity, complex compliance requirements, and constant pressure to deliver value for money, the need for trusted external support is growing. That’s where Thornton & Lowe can help.

We specialise in public procurement consultancy for publicly funded organisations. Our team works with you to provide honest, practical advice and tailored support. Whether you need us for a short project or to act as your outsourced Procurement Manager, we help ensure you stay compliant, reduce risk, and make confident, defensible decisions.

Support when you need it

Our clients don’t always have a dedicated procurement team. Often, procurement is managed by stretched finance, operations, or estates teams. We become a natural extension of your team, making procurement less daunting and more effective.

We’ve supported housing associations preparing for new estate service contracts, education providers running multi-million-pound tenders, and charities needing advice on contract novation, urgent direct awards, or procurement audits. Our goal is to keep things clear, compliant and proportionate.

Examples of our procurement support

Procurement options appraisal

Choosing the right route to market is a critical first step. Our procurement options appraisal support helps you understand your options, including frameworks, DPSs, direct awards, or full tenders.

We assess each route in terms of compliance, delivery timescales, risk, cost, and market engagement. If certain suppliers are already known to you, we’ll factor that in, providing a clear, defensible recommendation.

What about frameworks and direct awards?

With the Procurement Act 2023 bringing more flexibility, our dynamic markets in procurement article explores how frameworks, DPSs and new commercial tools can be used to simplify procurement while remaining compliant.

We help clients assess and access the most suitable solutions. This includes assessing if existing council or national frameworks could be used to engage local suppliers, or if running a competitive process offers better value.

Drafting clear, practical documents

Once the route is agreed, we support with drafting all procurement documentation, from specifications and evaluation criteria, through to method statements and social value questions. We’ll help you shape questions that give you useful, comparable answers from bidders, not generic sales content.

Evaluation support and moderated scoring

Evaluating bids in a fair and consistent way can be time-consuming and complex. We provide support throughout your evaluation process. This can include setting up scoring matrices, briefing your panel, and facilitating moderated scoring sessions. We help ensure decisions are well-documented and defensible.

We also offer full procurement audit trails and reporting templates to support approval and governance.

Support with novation and contract changes

If you’re taking over contracts or services mid-way, we can help with contract novation. This can involve changes in delivery model, provider, or legal ownership. We’ll work with your legal and finance teams to ensure contracts are correctly transferred and all risk is understood.

Embedded procurement support or short-term help

We offer:

• Short-term project support for a specific tender or review
• Procurement audits and readiness checks
• Outsourced Procurement Manager model (monthly support, starting from £1,250+VAT)
• Procurement documents and policy updates
• Support with evaluation, moderation, and award

Examples of our work

• We helped Longhurst Group review, design and procure new estate services, including full audits, stakeholder engagement, specification development, market engagement, procurement planning, and bid evaluation.
• For a large education client, we supported an urgent procurement with a full options appraisal and subsequent tender process, covering specification development, supplier engagement, and interviews.
• We will often work in the background redeveloping specifications and drafting full tender packs for busy procurement teams across the public sector!

See a case study.

Start with a free consultation

If you’re unsure about your next steps, we offer a free initial consultation to understand your requirements. We’ll help you explore procurement routes, likely timescales, and the level of support you may need.

To discuss how we can support your charity, housing association or education provider with procurement, contact us today.

Practical Tips to Get Started

• Update your procurement policy and procedures - Make sure your documents reflect the new Procurement Act objectives, obligations, and publication requirements
• Undertake early market engagement - It’s now encouraged and has always made sense... If you're unsure how to do this, our team can support you with pre-market engagement planning. You’ll need to start using the Find a Tender platform for notices.
• Contract management - The Act places responsibility beyond just procurement teams. Contract management is of course key in ensuring the success of any procurement exercise.
• Consider supplier readiness - The best results come from proper prep! Depending on the nature of your requirement - this may involve a little extra time or investment into developing your supply chain. This is also a big win for social value too!