Procurement Act 2023 for small contractors: how public sector bidding works now

The Procurement Act 2023 has governed most public sector buying in England, Wales and Northern Ireland since 24 February 2025. For a small contractor, four things matter most: you register once on the Central Digital Platform, every notice goes on Find a Tender, public contracts carry 30-day payment terms down the supply chain, and contracts go to the "most advantageous tender", not the cheapest.

What changed for small firms on 24 February 2025?

The Act merged several sets of rules into one and moved every notice onto a single site. GOV.UK says the changes "came into effect on 24 February 2025". Procurements a council started before that date still run under the old rules to the end.

The changes you'll notice when you bid:

• One registration. You set up an account on the Central Digital Platform, which is the enhanced Find a Tender service, and store your "core supplier information" there once. Councils ask you to confirm it's up to date for each bid rather than filling in a fresh questionnaire.
• One place to look. Procurements started under the Act publish their notices on Find a Tender only. Contracts Finder is now for old-regime procurements.
• Most advantageous tender. Councils award to the tender that best meets the published criteria. Price alone is allowed but the guidance calls it "unlikely to be suitable for most contracts".
• Scores and reasons back. If your tender is assessed and loses, you get an assessment summary with your scores, the reasons for them, and the winner's scores and reasons.
• Payment in 30 days. Valid, undisputed invoices on public contracts must be paid within 30 days, and the same term is implied into subcontracts.

For where to look for contracts once you're registered, see where to find construction tenders.

Which rules apply to the contract in front of you?

It depends on who's buying and what the contract is worth including VAT. Run the quick check before you spend a weekend on a bid: it tells you which process to expect.

Quick check: Which procurement rules cover this contract?

Is the buyer a devolved Scottish body, such as a Scottish council?

YesNo

Is it a works contract worth £5,193,000 or more including VAT?

YesNo

Is it worth £30,000 or more including VAT (£12,000 for central government)?

YesNo

Scottish rules apply

Devolved Scottish authorities are generally outside the Act and keep using Scottish procurement law. Look on Public Contracts Scotland and read the council's own procedure.

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Full Act procedures

Expect the open or competitive flexible procedure, conditions of participation, published award criteria, an assessment summary and an eight-working-day standstill before the contract is signed.

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Below-threshold rules

If the council advertises it, the notice goes on Find a Tender first. It can't run a separate pre-qualification stage, though it can check suitability at award. 30-day payment terms apply.

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The council's own rules

Below these values the Act sets no advertising duty. The council's contract procedure rules decide, often three quotes. Ask the buyer how they choose.

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How do you register to bid?

Register on Find a Tender as a supplier and complete your core supplier information. You do this once and reuse it, keeping it up to date.

The platform holds four groups of information about your firm:

When you first register you get a unique identifier, or you can use your Companies House number. A firm with fewer than 250 full-time equivalent staff and turnover of £44m or less (or a balance sheet of £38m or less) counts as an SME, which is every reader of this page.

Do the registration on a quiet Monday, not the night before a deadline. Councils have to get your confirmation that the record is current before the tender deadline, and a half-finished account is a needless way to lose a bid.

What can a council ask of a small firm?

Only what's proportionate to the contract. Under the Act, conditions of participation can cover your legal and financial capacity and your technical ability, and nothing else. The guidance adds three rules that help small firms:

1. A council can't demand audited accounts from a firm that isn't legally required to have them. It has to accept other evidence of financial standing.
2. It can't require contract-specific insurance to be in place before award. It can require it by the start of the contract.
3. If it asks for a qualification, it must accept equivalents.

Exclusion grounds are separate. A council must exclude a supplier for things like fraud, bribery, labour market offences and corporate manslaughter within the last five years, and may exclude for insolvency, serious breach of a previous public contract or professional misconduct. You can show "self-cleaning", such as new procedures, training or compensation paid, and the council must give you a chance to make your case.

How are bids scored now?

Against award criteria the council must publish with the tender notice, along with how they'll be assessed and their relative importance, usually as percentage weightings. For example, a tender might weight 70% quality and 30% price.

That split changes how you write a bid. The quality answers carry most of the marks, and a cheap price can't make up for a weak method statement. We go through the arithmetic in how 70/30 tenders are scored.

If your price is far below the others, the council can't reject it as "abnormally low" without first telling you and giving you a reasonable chance to show you can do the work for that price.

After the award decision, every supplier whose tender was assessed gets an assessment summary. Use it: the reasons for each score are the cheapest bid-writing lesson you'll get.

About ten of the 28 firms we spoke to between July and October 2026 tender or want to, and most found the pricing harder than the paperwork.

When do you get paid on public work?

Within 30 days of a valid, undisputed invoice. The Act implies that term into public contracts, and section 73 implies it into public subcontracts too, so it reaches a subbie working for a main contractor on council work. It also applies to regulated below-threshold contracts.

A valid invoice needs at least your name, a description of the work, the sum due and a unique invoice number. If the buyer disputes it, they must tell you without undue delay.

Main contractors bidding for central government contracts over £5 million a year also have to prove they pay their own suppliers on time. From 1 October 2025 that means paying 95% of invoices within 60 days and an average within 45 days, and departments now spot-check that subcontractors on those contracts are paid in 30 days. If you're paid late on a public job, you can raise it with the Public Procurement Review Service. For chasing anyone else, see how to chase an unpaid invoice.

Where do Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland differ?

Scotland is the big one. Devolved Scottish authorities, including Scottish councils, are generally excluded from the Act and keep following the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 and its regulations. UK-wide bodies buying in Scotland still use the Act.

Welsh devolved bodies follow the Act with a Wales procurement policy statement in place of the national one. Northern Ireland's transferred authorities follow the Act with some differences, and don't publish pipeline notices.

This is a summary of public guidance. For a specific bid where the rules matter, such as a challenge to an award, speak to a solicitor who handles procurement.

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Common questions

Sources

1. GOV.UK: The Procurement Act 2023, guidance for suppliers and contractors
2. GOV.UK: PPN 023, 2026 threshold amounts
3. GOV.UK: Guidance on thresholds
4. GOV.UK: Guidance on below-threshold contracts
5. GOV.UK: Guidance on the Central Digital Platform and publication of information
6. GOV.UK: Guidance on conditions of participation
7. GOV.UK: Guidance on exclusions
8. GOV.UK: Guidance on assessing competitive tenders
9. GOV.UK: Guidance on assessment summaries
10. GOV.UK: Guidance on contract award notices and standstill
11. GOV.UK: Guidance on time periods
12. GOV.UK: Guidance on electronic invoicing and payment
13. GOV.UK: Prompt payment policy
14. GOV.UK: PPN 021, payment spot checks in public sub-contracts
15. GOV.UK: PPN 019, publishing on Contracts Finder
16. GOV.UK: Guidance on devolved contracting authorities
17. GOV.UK: SME definition

Every rule, rate and date above was checked against these sources on the date shown at the top.