All changes
The Procurement Act 2023 (the “Act”) officially came into force on 24 February 2025.
The Act introduces extensive changes to public procurement processes, with the overarching aim of simplifying these procedures and enabling greater accessibility for businesses, particularly small and social enterprises, to compete for public sector contracts.
Key changes:
- Four sets of regulations have been transformed into a single, uniformed framework for public procurement;
- 5 procedures have been merged into 2 offering greater freedoms and flexibilities and an opportunity to design procurement processes;
- Increase in transparency providing greater visibility of opportunities for businesses and more scrutiny over contract management and where and how money is spent;
- Benefits for SMEs and VCSEs to increase access to public contracts and to broaden the markets;
- Strengthened processes to exclude suppliers where they are not fit to deliver contracts to the public sector;
- Localised priorities with the power to publish the national procurement policy statement and in Wales, the Wales procurement policy statement.
The Public Contract Regulations 2015 continue to apply to procurements that commenced prior to 24 February 2025 and contracts that concluded prior to this date.
In Wales, the Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Act (the “SPPP Act”) is also in force. The SPPP Act is about organisations working together in Wales to deliver public services.
Key features of the SPPP Act include the establishment of a Social Partnership Council, and a statutory duty on certain public bodies to consider socially responsible public procurement when carrying out public procurement activity.
The Provider Selection Regime Wales makes separate provision for the procurement of certain health services in Wales – relevant authorities must follow the rules established under the Health Services (Provider Selection Regime) (Wales) Regulations rather than the Procurement Act 2023 when procuring health services covered by the Provider Selection Regime Wales.
