The Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015, also referred to as SBEE, received

Royal Assent Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in other ...

in March 2015. Its contents include

regulatory reform Regulatory reform concerns improvements to the quality of government regulation. At the international level, the "OECD Regulatory Reform Programme is aimed at helping governments improve regulatory quality - that is, reforming regulations that rai ...

(part 2), public sector procurement (part 3) and

company director A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

disqualification issues (part 9).

Part 3

Part 3 concerns powers to make further regulations regarding public sector procurement, including processes for entering into contracts and

contract management Contract management or contract administration is the management of contracts made with customers, vendors, partners, or employees. Contract management includes negotiating the terms and conditions in contracts and ensuring compliance with the terms ...

(section 39) and investigations into procurement functions (section 40). One of the particular objectives underlying potential regulations would be to ensure that procurement functions are exercised in an efficient and timely manner. Examples of public sector purchasing practices identified in a

Cabinet Office The Cabinet Office is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for supporting the prime minister and Cabinet. It is composed of various units that support Cabinet committees and which co-ordinate the delivery of government objecti ...

consultation regarding the proposed legislation in 2014, before it was enacted, included over-complicating requirements and 'gold-plating'

specification A specification often refers to a set of documented requirements to be satisfied by a material, design, product, or service. A specification is often a type of technical standard. There are different types of technical or engineering specificati ...

s, being over-prescriptive for lower value procurements, complex tender documentation, and making inappropriate use of

framework agreement In the context of negotiations, a framework agreement is an agreement between two parties that recognizes that the parties have not come to a final agreement on all matters relevant to the relationship between them, but have come to agreement on en ...

s when they can be a barrier for

small business Small businesses are types of corporations, partnerships, or sole proprietorships which have fewer employees and/or less annual revenue than a regular-sized business or corporation. Businesses are defined as "small" in terms of being able to ap ...

es, and internal decision making procedures.

Part 9

On 1 October 2015, Part 9 of the Act came into force, which amended the

Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 The Company Directors Disqualification Act 19861986 c. 46 forms part of UK company law and sets out the procedures for company directors to be disqualified in certain cases of misconduct. History Lord Millett, in the opinion he gave in , summar ...

to introduce: :* inclusion of relevant foreign offences as grounds for disqualification (s. 104) :* extension of the régime to persons instructing unfit directors of

insolvent In accounting, insolvency is the state of being unable to pay the debts, by a person or company (debtor), at maturity; those in a state of insolvency are said to be ''insolvent''. There are two forms: cash-flow insolvency and balance-sheet inso ...

companies (s. 105) :* revision of the procedure for determining the unfitness of directors and shadow directors (s. 106) :* requirements for official receivers, liquidators, administrators and administrative receivers to report to the Secretary of State on the conduct of each person who was a director of a company on the insolvency date or within the three years before (s. 107) :* provision for compensation orders and undertakings on persons who are subject to disqualification orders or undertakings, where the person's conduct as a director caused loss to one or more creditors during the time he was a director of an insolvent company (s. 110)

References

United Kingdom company law Corporate directors {{UK-law-stub