On 12 September 2024, the Cabinet Office announced that the new 'go-live' date for the Procurement Act 2024 (the Act) will be 24 February 2025. This has subsequently been codified under further transitional regulations (the Procurement Act 2023 (Commencement No.3 and Transitional and Saving Provisions) (Amendment) Regulations 2024), which also confirms that any DPS awarded under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 will expire (if it has not already done so) at the end of 23 February 2029.
Whilst this represents a four month delay from the original 'go-live' date of 28 October 2024, there is still a great deal of activity that contracting authorities should be undertaking in order to prepare for the Act coming into force.
In order to assist contracting authorities with preparing for the implementation of the Act, the Cabinet Office has released a number of guidance notes (with a number more still to be released). These guidance notes are split into four categories:
- Plan – which are designed to assist contracting authorities with having clear and transparent commercial pipelines and a good understanding of the market to plan for the procurement process.
- Define – which are designed to assist contracting authorities with achieving flexible, efficient procurement process that encourage broad participation and are open and accessible to all.
- Procure – which are designed to assist contracting authorities with evaluating bidder compliance with exclusion grounds and selecting suitable suppliers for the contract.
- Manage – which are designed to assist contracting authorities with working with suppliers and managing their contracts to ensure successful achievement of the contractual outcomes.
In total, the Cabinet Office has planned to publish 48 guidance notes prior to the 'go-live' date. At the time of publishing this insight, 42 of these have been published. We still await guidance notes on:
- Devolved contracting authorities
- Covered procurement objectives
- Intra-UK procurement
- Publication of information and the central digital platform
- Electronic invoicing
- Payment and payments compliance notices
All guidance published by the Cabinet Office to date can be found here.
Whilst the guidance notes are a good first step to assisting organisations with preparing for the Act, contracting authorities should ensure that they are taking stock of internal resource and capability, and ensuring that they are considering the key impacts that the Act may have on their organisations (including, for example, by ensuring that relevant staff are accessing the Government's more detail learning and development package that has been developed by the Cabinet Office).
