Public procurement — red-flag methodology

This page is the specification behind every flag, index and grade on the procurement pages. It is published so the flags can be checked and argued with: the definitions used to live only in code, which made a claim about a named company unfalsifiable from outside.

What it covers

  • 13 contract-level checks and 4 procedure-level ones — threshold, what each means, and when it is evaluated.
  • Why the denominator is the checks that could be evaluated rather than all of them.
  • The two DIFFERENT weight sets behind the A–F buyer and supplier grades.
  • Alignment with OCP's Red Flags for Integrity (2024) and iMonitor 2.0, including the checks that map to nothing there.
  • Known limits, including the research finding red flags weakly related to corruption.

A flag is not a verdict. A fired check means the behaviour is worth a second look — it may be entirely lawful, lawful but poor value, or illicit. The machine-readable catalogue is at risk-flags.json; see also public procurement.

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Recent analysis

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