The Procurement Act 2023 is the most significant overhaul of UK public procurement law since the country left the EU. It replaces the previous patchwork of regulations with a single, unified framework, and it’s been in force in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland since 24th February 2025.
If you bid for public sector contracts, understanding what the Act changed, and what’s changed since it came into force, is essential for staying compliant and competitive.
What Was the Point of the Act?
The Act was designed to increase efficiency, transparency, and support for small businesses. Its core aims include:
- A more flexible procurement procedure, allowing contracting authorities to tailor their process to the specific contract rather than following a rigid, one-size-fits-all route.
- Greater transparency, with public sector organisations required to publish notices and performance information throughout the procurement and contract lifecycle, giving bidders far more insight into buyer priorities and expectations.
- A central digital platform, replacing the previous system of separate portals with a single service for supplier registration and procurement notices.
- Provisions for excluding suppliers based on poor past performance, raising the bar on accountability across the supply chain.
- Better access for SMEs and VCFSEs (voluntary, community, and social enterprises), including a duty on contracting authorities to consider and reduce barriers faced by smaller suppliers.
Together, these changes aim to create a more competitive, fair, and transparent public procurement environment.
The Central Digital Platform
One of the most visible changes for suppliers is the Central Digital Platform, the enhanced Find a Tender service, which has replaced the previous separate registration processes. Suppliers register their organisation once on the platform, rather than re-entering the same information for every tender, and use it to view live opportunities, publish and receive procurement notices, and manage supplier information centrally.
If you haven’t yet registered your organisation and administrator, this should be a priority, since registration is now a practical requirement for engaging with public sector opportunities under the Act.
What’s Changed Since the Act Came Into Force
The Act has been rolling out obligations in stages rather than all at once, and several significant transparency requirements have come into effect through 2026. If you bid for public sector work, these are the ones to know:
- Contract performance notices (from January 2026). Contracting authorities must now publish supplier performance against contractual KPIs at least annually, including details of any significant breaches or failures to deliver. This information feeds into a central, public register. In practice, poor performance is now a matter of public record, with direct implications for a supplier’s reputation and eligibility for future contracts.
- Payments compliance notices (from January 2026 in England, April 2026 in Wales). Contracting authorities must publish their average time taken to pay invoices, reported roughly every six months, demonstrating compliance with 30-day payment terms.
- Payment information (from April 2026). Contracting authorities must publish details of payments over £30,000 made under public contracts, giving suppliers and the public visibility into how quickly and reliably payments are actually made.
- Supplier registration for below-threshold contracts (from April 2026). Suppliers awarded notifiable below-threshold contracts must register on the Central Digital Platform and obtain a unique identifier, which must then be included in the Contract Details Notice.
- Strengthened SME and VCFSE support. Alongside the Act, the National Procurement Policy Statement and PPN 001 introduce spend targets for smaller suppliers; in-scope authorities must set SME and VCFSE spend targets, and 30-day payment terms have been strengthened across public sector supply chains.
Taken together, these changes mean the Act’s transparency regime now covers the full contract lifecycle, not just the point of award. What happens after a contract is won, how well it’s delivered and how promptly it’s paid, is now publicly visible in a way it never was before.
What This Means for Bidders
For suppliers, the practical takeaways are:
- Register early. If you haven’t registered on the Central Digital Platform, do so well ahead of any opportunity you want to bid for.
- Delivery now matters publicly, not just at award. Since contract performance is published and feeds into a central register, consistently strong delivery is increasingly part of your track record for future bids, not just a private matter between you and the buyer.
- Expect more transparency from buyers too. Published notices and performance indicators throughout the procurement lifecycle give you more insight than before into what buyers are prioritising, useful intelligence when deciding whether and how to bid.
- Social value and SME-friendly procurement is being reinforced, not scaled back. If your organisation is a smaller supplier, the barriers-reduction duties and spend targets are worth understanding and referencing where relevant in your bids.
Staying Compliant
Procurement law rarely stands still, and the Act has continued to evolve since Royal Assent through a series of commencement regulations. If you’re a regular bidder for public sector contracts, it’s worth periodically checking your compliance position against the latest requirements rather than assuming the rules are the same as when you last checked.
If you’d like support understanding how these changes affect your bidding strategy, or want help preparing compliant, competitive submissions under the current regime, get in touch with DellaPip today.