RM6399 and the next four years of government consulting.
What SME consultancies need to sort before 9 November. RM6399 replaces MCF4, one of the main routes central government uses to buy consultancy. The Government Commercial Agency is letting it under the Procurement Act 2023, and once it starts in June 2027 it runs for four years with no option to extend. The tender pack describes no way on for firms that miss this round.
- bids close
- 3pm, 9 November 2026
- clarification questions close
- 3pm, 22 October 2026
- framework starts
- 24 June 2027
- framework ends
- 23 June 2031
- places
- Up to 500 across 10 lots
- estimated value
- £5bn over four years, excluding VAT
- fee to GCA
- 1% of what you invoice through it
Source: Find a Tender notice 087183-2026 and the RM6399 tender pack. Check every date on the notice before you rely on it.
Three in four call-offs were under £500,000.
83 of the 109 MCF4 call-offs with a published value were under £500,000, but together they came to less than a tenth of the money. Fifteen call-offs of £2m or more took four-fifths of it.
Bars show each band’s share of the 109 call-offs with a published value, and its share of their £118.8m total. Not every MCF4 call-off is published, so these figures cover published call-offs only and are not the total spent through the framework.
Ministerial departments placed 9 of the 113.
Across the last year, ministerial departments placed 9 of the 113 MCF4 call-offs we found. Regulators, councils, NHS trusts, agencies and other public bodies placed the rest, and the work ran from groundwater risk to VAT advice.
Hydrogeological Conceptualisation and Environmental Risk Assessment
RAID Agile training
Borderlands Place Programme - Northumberland Public Realm, Wayfinding and Connectivity Study
VAT Advisory Services
Specialist Technical Support for Aerial Surveillance Procurement
Urgent Specialist Restructuring and Insolvency Advisory Services
Published call-offs only. Buyer types assigned by Tenderbot. Reference numbers removed from two titles; titles are otherwise as published by the buyer.
What an MCF4 call-off looks like.
Six call-offs from the last year, none of them placed by a ministerial department.
Half of these were worth under £100,000.
Wise Use of Water - Isle of Sheppey and Swale Estuary Consultancy Services
Management Consultancy Theatres
External support - Future of Food Regulation Programme
Asset Management Maturity Assessment (AMMA)
Technology Enabled Care in Supported Living Settings
Carbon Footprint Assessment Services
Real notices · titles and values as published by the buyer
Some buyers came back again and again.
Ofwat placed 13 MCF4 call-offs in the year and Homes England placed eight. These are the buyers to know before RM6399 starts.
10 of Ofwat’s 13 call-offs were under £200,000.
| Buyer | Call-offs | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Ofwat | 13 | £7.6m |
| Homes England | 8 | £1.9m |
| UK Shared Business Services | 4 | £248,000 |
| Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust | 4 | £1.1m |
| Ministry of Defence | 4 | £579,000 |
| Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust | 3 | £4.3m |
| West Midlands Combined Authority | 3 | £1.2m |
| Maritime and Coastguard Agency | 3 | £771,000 |
Published call-offs only, values as published. Some Ministry of Defence call-offs were published without a value.
Lot 1 rules out Lots 2 to 9.
Lot 1 is the multidisciplinary lot. If you bid for it you can’t bid for any of Lots 2 to 9, although Lot 10 can go alongside either. Every Lot 1 call-off is capped at £2m, including VAT and any extension options.
Decide which lots you’re going for before anyone starts writing.
| Lot | Places | Estimated value | Quality / price | TACs | Minimum value per TAC |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Multidisciplinary | 160 (20 per sub-lot) | £600m | 20 / 80 | 1 per sub-lot | £100,000 |
| 2 Strategy and policy | 40 | £850m | 90 / 10 | 3 | £1m |
| 3 Transformation | 40 | £2bn | 90 / 10 | 3 | One at £8m, two at £5m |
| 4 Finance | 40 | £350m | 90 / 10 | 2 | £750,000 |
| 5 HR | 40 | £200m | 90 / 10 | 2 | £450,000 |
| 6 Procurement | 40 | £300m | 90 / 10 | 3 | £600,000 |
| 7 Health and social care | 40 | £300m | 90 / 10 | 3 | £450,000 |
| 8 Infrastructure and public services | 40 | £200m | 90 / 10 | 6 | £400,000 |
| 9 Environment and sustainability | 40 | £125m | 90 / 10 | 4 | £250,000 |
| 10 Restructuring and insolvency | 20 | £75m | 70 / 30 | 1 to 16 | Client with £30m+ turnover and £5m+ debt |
Estimated values from the Find a Tender notice, excluding VAT. Places from Attachment 1, scoring from Attachment 2, TAC rules from Attachment 2b. TAC values include VAT.
The writing is the last part.
Ask your clients for their signatures this week.
Choose your lots first.
Price carries 80% of the marks on Lot 1, so a Lot 1 bid is a bet on your day rates. Whatever rates you enter become the most you can charge a buyer, and they’re fixed for the first two years.
Your clients sign your evidence.
Each Technical Ability Certificate covers one contract that started on or after 1 September 2023, delivered and invoiced up to the lot’s minimum value. Someone employed at the client signs it and GCA may ring them to check, so ask early.
The money check comes first.
For Lots 2 to 9, every bidder fills in GCA’s financial viability tool and uploads two sets of published accounts. Lot 1 bidders only fill in a lighter version if their Dun & Bradstreet score falls short. Put your numbers through the tool in the tender pack before anyone spends a day on the quality questions.
GCA has also said bidders who meet the Dun & Bradstreet threshold may not need the tool, and its clarification answers haven’t settled which rule applies. We’re waiting for GCA to confirm.
There’s no second round in the pack.
The framework runs for 48 months with no option to extend, and nothing in the tender pack describes a way on for new suppliers after award.
This is a summary. The tender pack in GCA’s eSourcing tool is the authority on every rule here.
Bid for RM6399 with us.
The last new bid we’ll start is on 12 October.
Your own place on the framework
If you have the evidence and the accounts, go for your own place. Our bid team writes RM6399 submissions for £6,500 on your first lot and £1,500 for each lot after that. We’re only taking on a few, so each one gets proper time.
Tenderbot reads every notice on Find a Tender and Contracts Finder and emails you the ones that match what your business does.