196501-369043 FOI Procurement

Please can you provide information on the authority's procurement policies and thresholds as relevant to software licencing? In particular:
•    Below what value threshold software licences can be purchased without requiring a competi-tive tendering process (in £, specifying whether this includes or excludes VAT), and whether this limit applies annually, per individual transaction etc.
•    Up to what value threshold (in £, specifying whether this includes or excludes VAT), single ten-der actions / direct awards can be considered.
•    What the policy or process is for deciding whether to use a single tender action / direct award.
•    Whether there is any requirement for software providers to the authority to be members of any procurement frameworks e.g. GCloud
If these questions can be most easily answered by sharing the authority's overall procurement policy, please feel free to do so.