It's 2018 and contracting authorities are still struggling with justifying their decisions

Arecent decision by the Technology and Construction Court (Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust v Lancashire County Council [2018] EWHC 1589) is a tour de force on how contracting authorities are often still unable to deal properly with the need to have good decision making models *and* keeping track of their decision making processes. Discretion does not mean arbitrariness...

Even bearing in mind that the contract at hand was for care services and as such subject to the "light touch" regime of Articles 74-76 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015, that does not mean contracting authorities can simply run the procedure as they see fit. The award decision must follow the award criteria disclosed (it did in this case) and any element of the decision that is material needs to be logged and justified.

It is also worth noting the importance that should be given to moderation when multiple individuals are involved in the assessment process and on this point paras 30-40 of the judgment. are scathing "[a]s this summary shows, there was no consistency either in identifying what were said to be key points or in highlighting points to show that they had been influential.  The approach differed even within the record of the same question(...)."

Well.