Policy paper

UK NAP6 Final status update Commitment 1: Open Contracting (HTML)

Updated 19 February 2026

Introduction 

This is the commitment 1: open contracting implementation status update for the end of the National Action Plan for Open Government 2024-2025 (NAP6).

The commitment focuses on the delivery of the Transforming Public Procurement Programme. Including delivering the Procurement Act 2023 and associated secondary legislation to establish a simpler, more commercial and transparent regime for public sector procurement that delivers better value for money and reduces costs for businesses and the public sector.

Open contracting is at the heart of these reforms by bringing transparency to decision making throughout the procurement lifecycle. The key deliverables over the NAP6 period improved levels of transparency through activity such as bringing together procurement datasets into one central digital platform to improve the insights available to the public.

What has been achieved? 

The actions taken under Commitment 1 on open contracting have substantially met the analysis, problem, and solution described in the original commitment, successfully establishing the new legislative and digital framework necessary to transform public procurement.

The central goal was to replace a complex, fragmented system, characterised by disparate data and limited insight into the UK’s £400 billion annual spend, with a simpler, more transparent, and open regime. This goal has been largely delivered through the completion of three key components:

• Legislation: The Procurement Act 2023 and the Procurement Regulations 2024 were passed by Parliament and came into force on the 24th February 2025 to establish the new legal framework.
• Digital and transparency : The central digital platform (an enhanced Find a Tender Service) went live alongside the legislation in February 2025 bringing together previously disparate procurement datasets to improve public data access. The implementation of the platform was supported by a collection of guidance, including details of the transparency notices.
• Capability and compliance: The learning and development programme rolled out with over 20,000 learners completing the core e-learning programme. The Procurement Review Unit was launched and is actively overseeing compliance with the new legal regime.

Whilst the new regime is established, work continues on several implementation-related deliverables and represent ongoing areas of focus. This includes the completion of an internal evaluation of the costs and benefits as the programme closes in  March 2026.Additionally, work on the overall Data Strategy is ongoing, as is the effort to establish a civil society Led Open Contracting Community of Practice.

Status of deliverables 

Deliverable	Completion Status	Completion Date	Actual Outputs
Procurement Act comes into force	Completed	Q1 2025	The Procurement Act 2023 came into force on 24 February 2025. This established the new legislative framework for public procurement in the UK. You can view the new Procurement Act on legislation.gov.uk.
Introduce Secondary legislation	Completed	Q2 2024	The Procurement Regulations 2024 were passed in Parliament on 22 May 2024. This statutory instrument (SI), which is a form of secondary legislation, applies a broad range of powers within the Procurement Act 2023 and provides additional detail about various aspects of the new procurement regime.
Roll-out the Learning and Development Programme	Completed	Q2 2024	There is a learning and development programme to support those operating within the new regime, available free at the point of delivery, including knowledge drops and self-guided e-learning for contracting authorities. This is complemented by traditional guidance published on gov.uk.
Deployment of the digital platform	Completed	Q1 2025	From 24 February 2025, the central digital platform was launched. Notices about new UK public sector procurements will be published on this service. As of December 2025, there are over 90,000 users registered on the platform. Ongoing developments will be deployed within the platform.
Publish transparency user guidance on the topics raised by civil society in the NAP consultation	Completed	Q2 2025	During 2024, the Cabinet Office and civil society worked jointly on topics of interest to develop guidance. This is captured in a transparency user briefing that covers transparency lifecycle and notices, and using data from the central digital platform. A draft was circulated to civil society in Spring 2025 for comment and updated to reflect civil society comments. This briefing will be periodically updated to reflect updates to the platform, such as the development of procurement dashboards. We have also published a collection of guidance documents, covering each stage of the procurement lifecycle, to support implementation of the Procurement Act 2023. This includes guidance on the purpose and application of transparency notices.
Publish regular updates on system readiness	Completed	Q1 2025	In addition to the programme communications we have provided the Open Contracting Advisory Group (OCAG) with updates at each meeting. In addition we have demonstrated the central digital platform to the group.
Overseeing compliance with the new legal regime	Completed	Q1 2025	The Procurement Review Unit (PRU) went live in February 2025. They aim to improve the capability and practices of contracting authorities for the benefit of everyone involved in public procurement by ensuring compliance with the new procurement rules. Monitoring compliance is ongoing. OCAG continues to be interested in the development of the PRU and receive regular briefings.
Develop a Data Strategy	Substantial	Ongoing activity in 2026	Interim findings of the digital discovery work were presented at the Q1 2025 data workshop. This work feeds into a functional data strategy that will be presented to the OCAG when completed.
Create a civil society led open contracting community of practice	Limited	Ongoing activity in 2026	Civil society devoted their slot at the January data event to taking this forward in the form of sector based sub communities. Civil society colleagues are leading on mapping wider communities who might stand to benefit from procurement data.
Sponsor a data use conference	Completed	Q1 2025	A data event was held in January 2025 which focussed on using procurement data for impact. This brought together civil society representatives and Government Commercial Function (GCF) officials across a number of departments. A key challenge identified was the consistency and quality of procurement data, and participants discussed methods to help raise capability amongst contracting authorities. Participants noted that once a quality data foundation has been laid, future ambitions include using data to understand the delivery of social value and local priorities.
Evaluation of the benefits and costs	Substantial	Estimated delivery Q2 2026	The Transforming Public Procurement Programme has a structured approach to the evaluation of benefits and costs in line with best practices.  The programme lead presented an overview of the evaluation of programme benefits to the OCAG in June 2025. This included the benefits and their associated measures, alongside details of plans for ongoing evaluation. A formal programme evaluation will be conducted in line with the end of the programme in March 2026.

Status of milestones 

Milestone	Completion Status	Completion Date	Actual Outputs
L&D Programme goes live	Completed	Q2 2024	Appropriate training was delivered for the public sector and suppliers. This included knowledge drops tailored for both practitioners and suppliers. Additionally, we launched a 10 module e-learning course and deep dive sessions for practitioners.
Secondary legislation laid and passed in Parliament	Completed	Q2 2024	The Procurement Regulations 2024 were laid in March 2024 and passed on 22nd May 2024.
Central Digital Platform deployed	Completed	Q1 2025	The Central Digital Platform went live alongside the Procurement Act 2023 in February 2025. This delivered an enhanced version of Find a Tender Service and will be under continuous development.
New Procurement Act regime goes live	Completed	Q1 2025	The Procurement Act regime came into force in February 2025 and introduced a new legislative regime for public procurement.
Publish transparency user guidance	Completed	Q2 2025	During 2024, the Cabinet Office and civil society worked jointly on topics of interest to develop guidance. This is captured in a transparency user briefing that covers transparency lifecycle and notices, and using data from the central digital platform. A draft was circulated to civil society in Spring 2025 for comment andt. The document has been updated to reflect civil society comments.This briefing will be periodically updated to reflect updates to the platform, such as the development of procurement dashboards. We have also published a collection of guidance documents, covering each stage of the procurement lifecycle, to support implementation of the Procurement Act 2023. This includes guidance on the purpose and application of transparency notices.
Publish regular updates on system readiness	Completed	Q1 2025	In addition to the programme communications, we have provided the OCAG with updates at each meeting. In addition we have demonstrated the central digital platform to the group.
Overseeing compliance with the new legal regime	Completed	Q1 2025	The Procurement Review Unit (PRU) went live in February 2025. They aim to improve the capability and practices of contracting authorities for the benefit of everyone involved in public procurement by ensuring compliance with the new procurement rules. Monitoring compliance is ongoing. OCAG continues to be interested in the development of the PRU and receive regular briefings.
Develop a Data Strategy	Limited	Ongoing activity in 2026	Interim findings of the digital discovery work were presented at the January data event. This work feeds into a functional data strategy that will be presented to the OCAG when completed.
Create a civil society led open contracting community of practice	Limited	Ongoing activity in 2026	Civil society devoted their slot at the January 2025 data event to taking this forward in the form of sector based sub communities. Civil society colleagues are leading on mapping wider communities who might stand to benefit from procurement data.
Sponsor a data use conference	Completed	Q1 2025	A data event was held in January 2025 which focussed on using procurement data for impact. This brought together civil society representatives and GCF officials across a number of departments. A key challenge identified was the consistency and quality of procurement data, and participants discussed methods to help raise capability amongst contracting authorities. Participants noted that once a quality data foundation has been laid, future ambitions include using data to understand the delivery of social value and local priorities.
Evaluation of the benefits and costs	Substantial	Estimated delivery Q2 2026	The Transforming Public Procurement Programme has a structured approach to the evaluation of benefits and costs in line with best practices.  The programme lead presented an overview of the evaluation of programme benefits to the OCAG in June 2025. This included the benefits and their associated measures, alongside details of plans for ongoing evaluation. A formal programme evaluation will be conducted in line with the end of the programme in March 2026.