Provision of Bloomberg Terminal

This has been awarded as a direct award because there is not substitute/competing

products for Bloomberg. The Bloomberg dataset is integral to the live production of UK

economic statistics, particularly monthly and quarterly Price and GDP Core Outputs. No

existing datasets within ONS or externally meet the required granularity, timeliness, and

methodological standards. Reuse of existing data is not viable, and failure to acquire this

dataset would compromise the accuracy, quality and reliability of core outputs.

Page 4 to 5

Direct award conditions and permissible justifications are set out under Chapter 3 and

Schedule 5 of the Procurement Act. There is justification for a direct award on the grounds

set out under paragraph 5 of Schedule 5 where the following conditions are met in relation

to the public contract-

(a)due to a particular supplier having intellectual property rights or other exclusive rights,

only that supplier can supply the goods, services or works required, and

(b)there are no reasonable alternatives to those goods, services or works.