{"id":888912,"date":"2026-01-30T23:12:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T05:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/30\/more-firms-dragged-into-school-roofing-bid-rigging-probe\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T23:12:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T05:12:17","slug":"more-firms-dragged-into-school-roofing-bid-rigging-probe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/30\/more-firms-dragged-into-school-roofing-bid-rigging-probe\/","title":{"rendered":"More firms dragged into school roofing bid-rigging probe"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wrapper_sleeve\">\n<p><img width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.ca.emap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2023\/01\/Education.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"  alt=\"Education.jpg\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has widened its active probe into suspected bid-rigging on school roofing contracts to cover activity by more firms.<\/p>\n<p>Its investigation now includes unnamed \u201cadditional parties\u201d, the watchdog announced yesterday (29 January) in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>The probe. launched in December, was originally focused on roofing and other construction-related contracts funded through the Department for Education\u2019s (DfE\u2019s) Condition Improvement Fund (CIF), to explore whether firms breached the Competition Act 1998.<\/p>\n<p>Based on the evidence reviewed to date, however, the CMA believes that suspected anti-competitive conduct went beyond schools eligible for CIF funding.<\/p>\n<p><em>Construction News <\/em>understands that the CMA now suspects similar conduct may have affected construction contracts funded by other public and private sector bodies, not just the DfE.<\/p>\n<p>For the 2025\/26 financial year, the DfE provided almost \u00a3470m in CIF funding to address condition issues in eligible schools, academies and sixth-form colleges.<\/p>\n<p>In announcing the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.constructionnews.co.uk\/buildings\/cma-launches-probe-into-school-roofing-bids-12-12-2024\/\">launch of the investigation<\/a> in December 2024, the watchdog said it had already conducted \u201cunannounced inspections\u201d at multiple business premises.<\/p>\n<p>It said it had \u201creason to suspect\u201d that firms providing roofing and construction services had colluded to fix bids for DfE-funded work.<\/p>\n<p>If the CMA provisionally decides that the companies have broken competition law, it will issue a statement of objections, with firms having the opportunity to respond.<\/p>\n<p>But in its latest update, the CMA said it did not assume \u201cat this stage\u201d that the Competition Act had been broken.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe CMA has not reached a view as to whether there is sufficient evidence of an infringement of competition law for it to issue a statement of objections to any of the parties under investigation,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n<p>A CMA spokesperson said no further details are available on the case or companies being investigated.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.constructionnews.co.uk\/buildings\/more-firms-dragged-into-school-roofing-bid-rigging-probe-30-01-2026\/\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><br \/>\n Ben Vogel<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has widened its active probe into suspected bid-rigging on school roofing contracts to cover activity by more firms. Its investigation now includes unnamed \u201cadditional parties\u201d, the watchdog announced yesterday (29 January) in a statement. The probe. launched in December, was originally focused on roofing and other construction-related contracts funded<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":888913,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36925,204],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-888912","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dragged","8":"category-firms"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=888912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/888913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=888912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=888912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=888912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}