Trowers & Hamlins is committed to helping our clients, contacts and colleagues across the public sector implement the new public procurement regime to best effect.
On 11 May 2022, the UK Government introduced the much-anticipated Procurement Bill (the Bill) into the House of Lords, where it received its first reading. The Bill was accompanied by supporting documents including Explanatory Notes to the Bill, an Impact Assessment, an Equality Impact Assessment and a Delegated Powers Memorandum.
Having concluded its passage through Parliament, the Bill was passed into law on 26th October 2023 as the highly anticipated Procurement Act 2023 (the Act).
The Act follows an extensive consultation process on procurement reform following the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union. The Bill represents the Government’s post-Brexit approach to the proposed procurement regime as set out in its earlier Green Paper on Transforming Public Procurement published in December 2020, and the subsequent Government Response to the consultation, published in December 2021.
Major change to procurement landscape
In our Essential Guide to the Procurement Act 2023, we have summarised the key concepts that have been brought forward by the Government into the new legislation.
We have focused on comparisons between the Act and the current Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (the PCR), and not the wider landscape of other procurement legislation.
In addition to the Essential Guide, we have also prepared our Procurement Act 2023 jargon buster to help readers get to grips with the many significant linguistic and stylistic differences in the Act. This jargon buster sets out definitions of key terminology in the Act, and identifies where terminology has changed from the existing rules.
Delivering meaningful change
We have been working alongside the Cabinet Office, professional bodies, clients and colleagues across the public and private sectors from the outset of the proposals, helping to deliver meaningful change and progress the public procurement conversation across the industry.
This Essential Guide aims to provide an overview of the key changes to the legal landscape. Whilst the Essential Guide covers the Act as it currently stands, we still await further secondary legislation and guidance to flesh the regime out further. However, we hope that this Essential Guide will help interested readers to get to grips with the new regime.
What's covered in our Essential Guide to the Procurement Bill:
Key definitions:
- Principles and objectives
- Award of public contracts and procedures
- Management of public contracts
- Conflicts of interest
- Below-threshold contracts
- Implementation of international obligations
- Information and notices: General provision
- Remedies for breach of statutory duty
- Procurement oversight
- Appropriate authorities and cross-border procurement
- Amendments and repeals
We hope you enjoy reading the Essential Guide and please do get in touch with your usual Trowers contact if you would like to discuss any procurement reform-related issue you may have.
Download our Essential Guide to the Procurement Act 2023
