Part 3: Award of public contracts and procedures Chapter 3: Direct award Section 44: Transparency notices
The role of the transparency notice is to highlight early in the process that direct award is being used, increasing transparency. It does not initiate standstill (for which provision is made in section 51) and is in addition to the award notice (for which provision is made in section 50).
	Subsection (1) requires that before a contract is awarded by a direct award under section 41 (direct award in special cases) or 43 (switching to direct award), the contracting authority must publish a transparency notice.
	Subsection (2) contains more information about what a transparency notice is, namely that it must set out that the contracting authority intends to place a direct award.  Further detail about what needs to be in the notice will be set out in regulations under section 95 (notices, documents and information: regulations and online system).
	Subsection (3) sets out that transparency notices do not apply to contracts directly awarded under the user choice provision in paragraph 15 of Schedule 5 (direct award justifications).