Dorset Council: its biggest suppliers, and what it is buying next.
Dorset Council is a unitary authority in the South West. We hold 542 of its award notices, 19 contracts due to end within 18 months, and 4 committee papers from the last 120 days that talk about buying. Everything here comes from public records: award notices the council itself published, and the papers it publishes before each committee meeting.
Data updated: 20 September 2026 (committee papers) | 18 September 2026 (award notices)
GovLeads reads Dorset Council's papers every weeknight. A value is published on 334 of those 542 award notices, so the total is a floor, not the council's spend.
Next committee meetings
The next 5 scheduled meetings at Dorset Council, taken from the council's own calendar. Papers usually appear five clear working days beforehand, and we read them the night they land.
| Date | Committee |
|---|---|
| 21 Sep 2026 | People and Health Overview Committee |
| 22 Sep 2026 | Northern Area Planning Committee |
| 23 Sep 2026 | Harbours Advisory Committee |
| 24 Sep 2026 | Place and Resources Scrutiny Committee |
| 25 Sep 2026 | Licensing and Gambling Acts Sub-Committee |
Biggest suppliers
Ranked by total awarded value across every Dorset Council award notice we hold. Values on multi-supplier frameworks are shared across the suppliers named on them, so a place on a large framework does not inflate a single firm.
| Supplier | Awarded value | Awards |
|---|---|---|
| Millbrook Healthcare Group | £27.6m | 2 |
| Humankind Charity | £23.0m | 3 |
| Beaufort Care Group | £14.0m | 2 |
| Budwood Limited | £14.0m | 2 |
| Lily Residential Services | £14.0m | 2 |
Largest awards of the last 12 months
The biggest awards Dorset Council has notified in the last year. Awards sharing a title and end date are collapsed into a single row, so a framework or dynamic purchasing system appears once rather than once per supplier.
| Award | Supplier | Value | Route |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dorset Learning Centre Transport3 award notices, shown once | framework, 3 suppliers | £7.0m | Restricted |
| Grouted Asphalt Surface Treatments 2026- 2029 | Miles Macadam Limited | £1.5m | Restricted |
| In-situ Road recycling 2026-29 | Stabilised Pavements Limited | £1.5m | Restricted |
| Procurement of a Single Highways Asset Management ICT System | Symology Ltd | £1.3m | Open |
| Wareham Level Crossing - Provision of Crossing Attendants | STM Group (UK) Ltd | £659,254 | Restricted |
How the money is awarded
37% of Dorset Council's awarded value went through open competition and 1% was awarded directly. A further 60% sits on notices that do not state a route at all. Directly awarded work is the part of the market that never reaches a competitive notice, so it is the part you have to see coming upstream.
- Other/Unspecified 60% (£451m)
- Competed 37% (£279m)
- Direct 1% (£9.6m)
- Framework/DPS 1% (£7.2m)
Contracts expiring within 18 months
The 5 largest by value on record for Dorset Council, of those with an end date inside 18 months. A re-procurement decision normally reaches a committee months before the contract itself runs out, which is the point at which scope is still moveable, so the months-left column matters as much as the value.
| Ends | Months left | Contract | Supplier | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 Jun 2027 | 9 | The Provision of Children's Residential Care3 award notices, shown once | framework, 3 suppliers | £42.0m |
| 30 Sep 2026 | under 1 | Framework for the Hire of Operated and Self-Operated Plant Machinery31 award notices, shown once | framework, 31 suppliers | £10.0m |
| 18 Dec 2026 | 2 | Highways Construction Materials Framework 202213 award notices, shown once | framework, 13 suppliers | £10.0m |
| 30 Jun 2027 | 9 | Integrated Care System Urgent and Emergency Care Transformation Programme - Mobilisation | Newton Europe Limited | £9.0m |
| 30 Sep 2026 | under 1 | Dorset Integrated Prevention Partnership Services4 award notices, shown once | framework, 4 suppliers | £5.7m |
14 more Dorset Council contracts expire by 20 March 2028. Start a free trial to see them.
Procurement radar
Committee papers Dorset Council published in the last four months whose title uses the language of buying: a tender, an award, an extension, a gateway report, a waiver, or a procurement strategy, policy or performance report. It is a title match, so the odd paper lands here on a word rather than a decision.
| Meeting | Paper | Committee |
|---|---|---|
| 16 Sep 2026 | HWB Outcomes Framework final reportTo agree the proposed outcomes framework which will be a key component of the refreshed Health and Wellbeing strategy. | Health and Wellbeing Board |
| 14 Sep 2026 | Dorset Council Commissioner's ReportRegular contract review meetings continue between the Managing Director of DCOE and the Strategic Commissioner for Education, focused on the performance of Coombe House School and on development of service to meet identified and emerging needs. | Shareholder Committee for the Dorset Centre of Excellence (DCOE) |
| 14 Sep 2026 | Dorset Council Commissioner's ReportDorset Centre of Excellence against the commissioning agreement. | Shareholder Committee for the Dorset Centre of Excellence (DCOE) |
Showing the 3 strongest matches of 4. This is the raw feed, not the brief: a subscriber gets the handful that match their business, scored, with the so-what written out. Start a free trial.
Nearby councils
Suppliers rarely sell to one council alone. These are the authorities next door, and the ones covering the same ground at a different tier.
Councils it borders
Where Dorset Council spends most
The service areas taking the largest share of awarded value here. Each one has its own page explaining what we watch for.
Where this comes from
Awards, suppliers and expiry dates come from award notices published to Contracts Finder and Find a Tender by Dorset Council. The award data set was last refreshed on 18 September 2026, so notices published since then are not yet counted here. Values are as notified; where a notice names several suppliers, the value is shared across them.
Committee papers and meeting dates come from Dorset Council's own published papers, at https://moderngov.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk. Every paper linked above is on the council's own site. Committee-paper figures were extracted on 20 September 2026.
What we leave out. A notice naming more than one buying authority is excluded, because it does not say how the value splits between them. So are notices from bodies that share this council's name but are separate organisations, such as the local college or NHS trust. Both would otherwise be counted here as Dorset Council's.
Nothing on this page is modelled, estimated or inferred. Every number is a count or a sum over those two public sources. Where a figure would be a guess, it is left out.