Transforming Procurement With the New Procurement Act

The Procurement Act 2023 came into effect on 24 February 2025. Its objective is to simplify and streamline public sector procurement processes, making them more flexible, transparent and fairer.

Designed to improve value for money, encourage competition, and support small businesses and social enterprises, it replaces existing regulations with a single, modernised framework.

The Act’s aims are:

• Reporting transparency – Embeds transparency throughout the commercial lifecycle. Additional pipeline and notice publication requirement throughout the process including in Contract Management.
• Financial savings – Encourage innovative solutions, potential to realise better value for money and greater savings through transparent contract and performance management.
• Community investment – improving wider societal benefits by moving from Most Economically Advantageous Tender (MEAT) to Most Advantageous Tender (MAT), and, in central government, a minimum 10% social benefit mandated.
• Flexibility – Enable contracting authorities to tailor their approach to achieve better outcomes and value for money. Greater flexibility to modify route or contract.
• Supplier diversity – Help new entrants (especially SMEs) to compete for public contracts. Single digital tool for suppliers to register and reuse their details.
• Governance – Central digital platform to publish opportunities, enable greater scrutiny and monitor supplier performance.

Impact of the new Act on procurement activity

Any procurement activity commenced on or after 24 February 2025 will be undertaken in accordance with the Procurement Act 2023. This means using the new notices required under the Act and publishing information on the Central Digital Platform (based on the previous Find a Tender Service (FTS) platform.

The new Act does not apply retrospectively to any agreements entered into under the Public Contract Regulations 2015. These regulations will continue to apply to these agreements. This means you can continue to call-off from our existing framework agreements under Public Contract Regulations 2015 until they expire.

How we have prepared for the new Act

As a supplier to the public sector, we have made the required changes to our processes and documentation, including our tender packs, which have been amended to reflect the new regulations.

All our Commercial teams have also undertaken comprehensive training on the new Procurement Act.

This ensures we continue to deliver compliant services and framework agreements.

The Procurement Act is the biggest change in public procurement for several years and we welcome the increased clarity and transparency the Act brings.

How to learn more

The Government Commercial Function prepared a series of knowledge drops for contracting authorities and suppliers to provide an overview of the changes to the procurement regulations.

You can also access the Procurement Specific Questionnaire (PSQ) template on the Procurement Pathway Tool and on the Government Commercial College platform.

The PSQ helps contracting authorities receive core supplier information (from the central digital platform), additional exclusions and debarment information, and information relating to conditions of participation. The guidance also includes a glossary and handy ‘explainer’ for suppliers.

We have provided additional links to resources for suppliers within the Existing Suppliers section of our website.