Official UK procurement notice
Online Legal Research Subscription / Online Legal Library for Local Authority Legal Services
Authority: Carmarthenshire County Council (Local council)
What is being bought
Published requirement descriptionCarmarthenshire County Council wishes to undertake preliminary market engagement in relation to the provision of an online legal research and legal library subscription service for its in-house Legal Services team. The Council invites interested organisations to register their interest and request further information in relation to the provision of this service. This invitation is issued for information-gathering and early market engagement purposes only and does not constitute a commitment to proceed with any future procurement process.
The Council is exploring the market for a secure, cloud-based online legal research platform capable of providing comprehensive access to UK legislation, retained EU law, case law, legal commentary, practical guidance, precedents, legal encyclopaedias, reference works, training and support. The requirement is primarily to support in-house local authority lawyers delivering legal advice and services across a wide range of Council functions.
The Council requires market insight on whether suitable providers can offer a comprehensive legal research service covering primary and secondary legislation from the UK Parliament, Scottish Parliament, Northern Ireland Assembly and Welsh Senedd; retained EU law applicable in the UK; reported and relevant unreported UK cases and tribunal decisions; practical guidance; authoritative commentary; legal reference books; legal encyclopaedias; and editable/downloadable precedents. A critical requirement is the ability to reflect the latest legal position in Wales in devolved areas of law, rather than providing English-centric content with only limited Welsh coverage.
The Council is particularly interested in understanding the availability of one-stop-shop or integrated legal research platforms, including solutions that incorporate reliable AI-assisted legal search, natural language searching, document analysis, alerts, saved searches, usage analytics, remote access, single sign-on, multi-factor authentication, onboarding, training and ongoing account management.
CPV: Document creation, drawing, imaging, scheduling and productivity software package · Legal documentation and certification services · Library software package · Subscription services
The lotProcurement structure
single lot · no lot value publishedPipeline intelligence · planning stage: how this market runs before the tender is published
How Carmarthenshire County Council buys Subscription services (CPV 7998), and who usually turns up
Carmarthenshire County Council’s own published record, next to the published market for the same work. Frameworks and DPS are kept out: they attract a different number of bids. Whole-market view: Subscription services (CPV 7998) →
How the contest usually goes
Winner shares use published awards; bid and price charts use contested lots.
i
How often small and medium firms win.
Share of awards where the winner’s size is known.
The counts under this question show how many awards have a known supplier size.
Small firms have won here. Neither number says whether you qualify; it describes who has been winning.
i
How often local firms win similar work.
Winners with a registered address in the delivery region, out of awards with a known address.
Here, local means registered in Wales (Cymru).
A local branch does not count if the registered address is elsewhere.
Most of this buyer’s recorded winners are registered in Wales (Cymru).
i
How long buyers here take to decide after bids close.
Middle value in days from the deadline to the first award notice, on competitions that published both dates.
Only decided tenders count, so slow ones still waiting are not in.
Half of these awards were announced within 38 days of the bid deadline.
i
How often work is awarded with no recorded rival.
Direct awards and tenders where every published lot count shows one bid.
Both shares are minimums: some awards have no bid count.
Thin markets produce this too; it is not proof of a tailored specification.
Direct awards or one recorded bid are common here. Check the route before spending time on a bid.
How many bids did past lots attract?
i
How many bids past lots received.
Each colour is a bid-count range. Only competed lots with a published count are included.
Past bids do not predict this tender.
1 bid11% / 25%
2–347% / 25%
4–65% / 50%
7+37% / 0%
How did awards compare with estimates?
i
Where winning prices landed against estimates.
Each colour shows awards below, close to or above the published estimate, one lot at a time.
Past prices are a guide, not a bid price.
Below estimate30% / 57%
Within ±2%50% / 29%
Above estimate20% / 14%
Assess each lot i
What past awards tell you about each lot.
See the forecast, this buyer’s earlier suppliers and firms with relevant wins.
No supplier is confirmed as a bidder.
i
What past awards tell you about each lot.
See the forecast, this buyer’s earlier suppliers and firms with relevant wins.
No supplier is confirmed as a bidder.
Open a lot for its forecast, this buyer’s previous supplier and possible competitors, from published award history, not a bid list
Lot #1CPV 7998Published estimate£155k
i
How many bids this lot may attract.
The forecast uses similar past competitions. The bar shows either that forecast or past bid counts; the line below says which.
Each lot shows its own forecast based on its own category; forecasts for different lots of the same notice are not comparative. The bar shows 142 past lots.
A forecast, not a list of bidders.
1 bid11%
2–332%
4–625%
7+32%
i
Where the award price may land.
The forecast uses similar awards and the buyer’s estimate. The band covers the middle half of likely prices.
No comparable awards for this lot yet.
A statistical guide from past awards, not a price to bid.
Who has supplied this buyer on similar work? i
Who has done similar work for this buyer.
Past contracts are matched by buyer, title and type of work.
A past supplier may not bid again.
i
Who has done similar work for this buyer.
Past contracts are matched by buyer, title and type of work.
A past supplier may not bid again.
| Supplier | This buyer’s earlier contract | Lot | Award value | Why listed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RELX (UK) LIMITEDLive contract | Provision of an online legal library serviceruns to Jan 2027 | — | £25k | Matched as the earlier contract |
Who could compete for this lot? i
Who could compete for this lot?
Firms with relevant past wins. On a framework, we show firms on that agreement.
None is confirmed as a bidder.
i
Who could compete for this lot?
Firms with relevant past wins. On a framework, we show firms on that agreement.
None is confirmed as a bidder.
Candidate suppliers for this notice have not been worked out yet, so this is not a verdict that nobody fits.
About this data
- Source. Official UK public procurement notices (Find a Tender), reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. New notices arrive through the day; the figures are rebuilt nightly.
- Two views, kept apart. The authority’s own track record and the wider market for the same kind of work sit side by side and are never mixed. Where the local picture is too thin, a figure widens to a broader market and says which one it used.
- Forecasts are labelled. The price forecast and its range, possible competitors and the earlier-work matches are our estimates from past awards: not published facts, not win chances and not price advice. Official notices do not say who is bidding.
- Every figure shows what it rests on. Not every notice publishes a bid count, a value or a delivery region, so each figure carries the number of records behind it, and one built on few records is marked as such. The on a figure explains it; the counting rules are in the methodology. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.
Procedure terms & legal framework
From the official record- Legal basis
- UKPGA · 2023/54 Procurement Act 2023
- Procurement category
- Services
- Notice status
- Planned procurement
- Procurement threshold
- Below threshold
- Regulatory regime
- Standard
- Commercial structure
- Stand-alone contract (no framework)
- Competition type
- Competitive procedure
- GPA / WTO covered
- Unspecified in notice
- Recurring procurement
- Unspecified in notice
- First published
- 28 Jul 2026, 14:25 BST
- Last source update
- 28 Jul 2026, 14:25 BST
- FTS notice number
2026/S 000-071269- Latest notice
- Preliminary market engagement notice (UK2)
- Classification (CPV)
- Delivery area
- Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-06d55fFind a Tender
How it was run
Official notice- Submission deadline
- —
Timeline
28 Jul 2026 → 18 Jan 2027 · 4 dates- Planning notice published84 days ago28 Jul 2026, 14:25 BST
- Market engagement20 days ago30 Sept 2026, 23:59 BST
The Council seeks market feedback on supplier capability, available platforms, Wales-specific content coverage, AI-assisted legal research functionality, access and security arrangements, licensing models, service levels, training and implementation support, pricing structures, framework or consortium availability, and any alternative approaches that could meet the Council’s requirement.
- Whether suppliers can provide comprehensive coverage of UK legislation, retained EU law, case law, tribunal decisions, legal commentary, practical guidance, precedents, legal encyclopaedias and specialist reference works.
- How suppliers distinguish between English and Welsh law in devolved areas, including education, housing, social care, local government, environmental law, animal health and regulatory enforcement.
- Whether suppliers can provide substantive Wales-specific commentary, guidance and precedents, rather than limited recognition that the law differs in Wales.
- The extent of coverage across local government, planning and building control, highways and public rights of way, contracts and procurement, subsidy control, property, civil and criminal litigation, employment, data protection, freedom of information, safeguarding, education, housing, insolvency, company law, construction and public law.
- The availability, reliability and limitations of AI-assisted search, natural language search, document analysis, saved searches, alerts and research workflow tools.
- Available licence models, including named users, concurrent users, module-based access and recommendations for local authority legal teams.
- Technical requirements including cloud access, remote access, single sign-on, multi-factor authentication, usage analytics, reporting, data protection, security and support arrangements.
- Indicative pricing, contract length, renewal arrangements, implementation timescales, training, account management and service level commitments.
- Availability through public sector purchasing arrangements.
- Any aspects of the Council’s emerging requirement that may restrict competition, be disproportionate, or could be delivered through a different structure.
Response format: Online sessions will commence early September 2026.
Interested parties should contact Hayley Davies via email at [email protected] to register interest and schedule a Teams call in September.
Confidentiality: Responses will be treated as commercially confidential where appropriate. Suppliers should clearly identify any information they consider commercially sensitive. Aggregated and anonymised feedback may be used to inform the Council’s procurement strategy, specification, route to market and any future tender documentation.
No commitment: This notice does not constitute an invitation to tender. The Council is not obliged to proceed with procurement or award a contract.
- Today20 Oct 2026
- Tender notice expectedin 28 days16 Nov 2026, 23:59 GMT
- Contract startsin 90 days18 Jan 2027
Notice history
1 event · 1 release on Find a Tender- Preliminary market engagement notice published28 Jul 2026, 14:25 BSTUK2
Commercial outcome & contract awards
Pipeline notice- Awards (0)
- No award published
- Contracts (0)
- No contract published
- Bid statistics
- No aggregate bid statistics published
Contracting authority & participating public bodies
Official documents & specifications (1)
Official links; attachments are not copiedNotices published for this procedure
- Preliminary market engagement notice Preliminary market engagement notice on Find a Tender