Procurement Act 2023

What is the Procurement Act 2023?

The Transforming Public Procurement programme is changing the way supplies, services and works are procured for the public sector, for the better.

The programme has delivered the Procurement Act 2023. This is legislation designed to overhaul the current government procurement processes, so that every pound goes further for communities and public services. It reforms the UK’s public procurement regime to:

create a simpler and more flexible commercial system that better meets our country’s needs while remaining compliant with our international obligations
open up public procurement to new entrants such as small businesses and social enterprises so that they can compete for and win more public contracts
embed transparency throughout the commercial lifecycle so that the spending of taxpayers’ money can be properly scrutinised.

In a nutshell, the Act focuses on simplifying public procurement for public benefit, transparency, scrutiny and value for money.

The Act is due to go live on 28 October 2024, although this date has not yet been confirmed. The Act will impact all Network Rail commercial and procurement activity.

How suppliers may see us do things differently

We are preparing to revise our commercial and procurement activity in line with the proposed reforms in the Procurement Act 2023. There will be no impact to existing contracts, or live procurements.

As the Act is rolled out, these are some changes you may see from Network Rail.

Notices:

visibility of commercial pipelines via the government’s Find a Tender Service (FTS), as well as on Network Rail’s website
a specific preliminary market engagement notice to inform the supply chain of engagement scheduled to happen, or engagement carried out to date.

Competitive tendering processes:

a reduction of procedures to: direct award, open framework, or competitive flexible procedure
more flexible commercial frameworks (e.g. an open framework) that can be opened during its life span
competitive flexible procedure – Network Rail can design its own procurement process to best fit the nature of what is being procured and the marketplace in which is it being bought.

Supplier registration:

central digital platform for suppliers to register and store their details so that they can be used for multiple bids, and see all opportunities in one place
in order to work with Network Rail, suppliers will need to ensure they are registered on this system prior to submitting tenders.

Dynamic market:

a register of tools to show which frameworks and dynamic markets are available, so suppliers can identify opportunities and research the options for bidding on these in the future
suppliers can apply to join the Dynamic Market any time and the buyer can use the register to run quick competitions.

Frequently asked questions

Links to government guidance

The Cabinet Office has developed a number of knowledge drops specifically for suppliers, and small and medium-sized enterprises and voluntary, community or social enterprise organisations:

For suppliers – part 1 – Youtube video