How it works
Every rule behind the Monday email
Where the Radar reads, what it keeps, how each company is checked, and what it never does. If a rule changes, this page changes with it.
Where it reads
- Today, one source: public contract awards from Contracts Finder, one of the government's two contract-notice services. It is published under the Open Government Licence.
- The last run read 2,431 award notices from the 30 days to 25 Sep 2026.
- Next: Companies House, company websites, careers pages, local business news, Find a Tender and the Scottish and Welsh contract portals. None of these is live yet, and the site never says otherwise.
What it keeps
- One winner per award. Frameworks that name many suppliers are left out: "won a £10m contract" would be false for each of them.
- Registered companies and LLPs only, with a Companies House number. Sole traders and partnerships count as people, and an overseas company's UK branch isn't a UK firm, so they are never kept. Northern Ireland isn't covered yet.
- Firms the notice marks as small or medium.
- An award of £50,000 or more, made in the 60 days before its notice. Where the notice gives a range ("£0 to £450,000", often a call-off from a framework), the rule reads its top, and the site says "up to £450,000".
- Near you: within an agreed distance of your office. The examples on this site use 30 miles.
- IT work and IT firms left out: they are your competitors, not your clients.
- Firms that belong to a larger group left out: they tend to run IT centrally. Owners are checked on the Companies House register; firms owned by their founders, a family holding company, their employees or partners stay in.
- One row per company, even when it won twice.
Why a contract win is a reason to talk about IT
- A new contract brings new staff, new sites or more data to look after.
- Buyers check their suppliers too. Central government and NHS contracts that handle personal data need Cyber Essentials, or equivalent controls, before the supplier handles that data (Procurement Policy Note 014), and other public buyers can ask for it.
- It doesn't prove a company needs a new IT firm. Every email says what the evidence can't show.
How each company is checked
- Before a list goes out, every company on it is checked against fixed rules and its dated public notice: the reason, the link, the role and the first line. Anything that fails a rule comes off.
- Every first line opens with the company's own news, holds no figures, and ends with one plain question. The engine refuses a line that breaks these rules.
Who to write to
- A role for every company, from the notice or the company's own website.
- A link to the company's public register page. No names, and never LinkedIn.
- No email addresses. You add them from your own tools.
What it never does
- Scrape LinkedIn, or buy lists of people.
- Look firms up on the Cyber Essentials certificate search: its terms forbid marketing use.
- Ask for logins or access to your systems.
- Send email for you.
- Keep more about a person than a role and a published name.
What it can't see
- Who runs their IT today, unless they say so in public.
- Budgets, contract end dates and private plans.
- Whether the person you write to is the one who decides.
How much there is
- Across England, the rules kept 71 companies in the 30 days to 25 Sep: about 17 a week in all, from contract awards alone.
- So each IT firm's area is sized to its own data, and quiet areas are told so before they pay. More sources come next, to find more reasons in the same places.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Distances: contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026; Royal Mail data © Royal Mail copyright and database right 2026; National Statistics and NRS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026.
Get your free sample
Two real companies near you with a new reason to talk about IT this month, and your area's weekly number. Each is checked against fixed rules and its dated public notice.