New Procurement Act sowing ‘seeds of activity’

The twenty-fourth of February 2025 finally saw the launch of the Procurement Act 2023 (the 'Act') — the largest single regulatory change to Public Procurement in over a decade. Its launch concluded what was a four-year long journey for the sector, with a variety of consultation periods, bill readings within both the House of Lords and Commons, and attainment of Royal Assent, followed by an elongated implementation period. The message throughout that journey was a consistent one: that the Act would streamline and simplify public procurement, seek innovative solutions from the market, and encourage sustainable and social offerings while remaining true to the public sector ethos of transparency and compliance.

The launch of the Act was always going to see be a slow but steady start. Within the final few days of the outgoing legislation (e.g. Public Contract Regulations 2015), there were a record 1,000-plus contract notices published. These formally commence procurement exercises and alert the market to opportunities — and the high number indicated from the start that public sector contracting authorities were going to adopt a 'learning-by-doing' approach when it came to undertaking procurement activity under the guise of the new Act.

Recent research shows around 24,500 notices 
have been published since 'go-live' with the new Act across the plethora of new notice types introduced within it. It will not surprise that the majority of those are 'pipeline', 'planning', 'tender', and 'contract' notices. Notably, 3,300 of those have been issued by the NHS, with around 310 of them with a 'construction' or 'estate management' prefix against them.