Grants and other subsidies, such as preferential loans, or asset-transfers are commissioning methodologies that may be used separately from contract, or in combination with them, for example in a community development project. They are all subject to the general public law principles of reasonableness, which equate to codified procurement principles of objectivity.

Optimal public service provision is not directly the purpose of the EU-based procurement regime. Rather, indirectly, that regime assumes the legal assurance that public authorities will not distort competitive markets, in granting contracts, to be essential in economic terms. The State Aid/Subsidy Control concept applies the same legal assurance to public-sector grants and other subsidies. The general EU Treaty principles of “equal treatment, non-discrimination, transparency, and proportionality” underpin both regimes.

The UK Government’s post-Brexit reforms seem unlikely to change that. So, general UK public law and specific regulation embed objectivity principles.

Importantly, they also provide purposive and permissive flexibility, to allow for those principles to be applied professionally in the best ways to optimise public service provision.