News story

Simpler, more flexible and transparent procurement

Procurement Bill factsheet

The Bill will replace the current bureaucratic and process-driven EU regime for public procurement by:

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

The main benefits of the Bill are:

  • Delivering better value for money – Supported by greater transparency and a bespoke approach to procurement, the Bill will provide greater flexibility for buyers to design their procurement processes and create more opportunities to negotiate with suppliers.

  • Slashing red tape and driving innovation – More than 350 complicated and bureaucratic rules govern public spending in the EU. Removing these and creating more sensible rules will not only reduce costs for businesses and the public sector, but also drive innovation by allowing buyers to tailor procurement to their exact needs, building in stages such as demonstrations and testing prototypes.

  • Making it easier to do business with the public sector – The Bill will accelerate spending with small businesses. A new duty will require contracting authorities to consider SMEs and we will ensure 30 day payment terms on a broader range of contracts. The Bill will also create a single digital platform for suppliers to register their details once so that they can be used for multiple bids.

  • Levelling up the UK – While value for money will remain the highest priority in procurement, the Bill will require buyers to take account of national strategic priorities such as job creation, improving supplier resilience, and driving innovation. Buyers will be able to reserve competitions for contracts below certain thresholds for suppliers located in the UK, SMEs and social enterprises.

  • Taking tougher action on underperforming suppliers – The Bill will put in place a new exclusions framework that will make it easier to exclude suppliers who have underperformed on other contracts. It will also create a new ‘debarment register’, accessible to all public sector organisations, which will list suppliers who must or may be excluded from contracts.

  • Creating an open and transparent system – Everyone will have access to public procurement data. Citizens will be able to scrutinise spending decisions. Suppliers will be able to identify new opportunities to bid and collaborate. Buyers will be able to analyse the market and benchmark their performance against others, for example on their spend with SMEs.

  • Effective emergency procurement – The Bill will allow faster competition processes for emergency buying, reducing the reliance on direct awards while retaining (and improving) the ability to act at pace in situations similar to the COVID pandemic

  • Protecting national security – The Bill includes specific rules for defence and security procurements, as well as provisions to exclude suppliers from procurements if they present a threat to national security. It also provides flexibility for contracts to be upgraded to refresh technology and avoid gaps in capability.

  • Strengthening exclusion grounds - The Bill toughens the rules to combat modern slavery by allowing suppliers to be excluded where there is evidence of modern slavery, accepting that in some jurisdictions it is unlikely that a supplier would ever face conviction.

Key facts: * At some £300 billion, public procurement accounts for around a third of all public expenditure every year and is the largest area of public spending. * The new regime will maintain compliance with our international obligations including the World Trade Organisation’s Agreement on Government Procurement, which gives British businesses guaranteed access to £1.3 trillion in public procurement opportunities overseas.

Published 12 May 2022