2025 - Procurement News Round Up

A very Happy New Year to all our readers as we gear up for a very significant year in public procurement, with the Procurement Act 2023 coming into force on 24 February 2025.

As we start 2025, here in the M&R Procurement Team we have been taking stock of the procurement related gifts received from government over the festive period.

The PSQ

None of these was more eagerly anticipated than the “PSQ”, the Procurement Specific Questionnaire, the replacement for the CCS Standard Selection Questionnaire. 

Much of the standard, exclusion and economic/financial information will of course be uploaded to the new Supplier Information Service section of the Central Digital Platform.

However, individual procurements are still likely to need a mechanism for setting procurement-specific conditions of participation. There will also need to be a document where any conditions of participation that are required by Procurement Policy Notes may be included. The PSQ will be that document.

Unlike the CCS SQ, the PSQ is not mandated for use. However, if an authority wants to take a different approach, it will need to ensure that the mandatory elements are covered in some alternative way. Authorities may also make additions to the PSQ (happily, gone are the days of “reportable deviations”!)

However, they must bear in mind the rules around including conditions of participation - any conditions set must be a proportionate means of ensuring that a supplier has the legal and financial capacity or technical ability to perform the contract.

Competitive Flexible Procedure templates

Also welcome was the publication of a template ITT for a Competitive Flexible Procedure (“CFP”) together with accompanying guidance and a list of CFP “stages”.

The “stages” document is probably the most useful of the three in shining a light on how a CFP might be designed.

It takes each potential element of a CFP and provides helpful guidance on why an authority might consider including each stage. The stages listed are not exhaustive and an authority would be free to include other types of stage/module within a CFP, provided these were compliant with the Act.

Interestingly, it includes a suggestion of using a supplier engagement event after the Tender Notice is published. It also confirms that there is no requirement to hold a down-selection stage (although we imagine most authorities will want to include one).

Also included is a Post-Tender Negotiation stage (aimed improving the content of the highest scoring tender) and a Preferred Supplier stage (likely to be used when contractual terms are complex or to confirm commitments made in tenders can be satisfied).

PPNs 015 (and 018)

The Cabinet Office was also busy with PPNs, releasing both PPN 015 and PPN 018 in December (note the new naming convention for PPNs!).  PPN 015 and 018 both deal with taking account of supplier approach to payment in the procurement of major contracts; PPN 015 replaces PPN 10/23 from 24^th February 2025, with PPN 018 then replacing PPN 015 from 1 October 2025.

PPNs 015/018 apply to government departments, their executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies where the value of the contract exceeds £5 million per year inclusive of VAT. Note that, potentially confusingly, this £5 million threshold is yearly, and not over the whole life of the contract, as is the case for e.g. the requirement to set and report on KPIs under the Act. The PPNs are expressly stated not to apply to NHS Trusts (even though these are of course central government authorities under the Act itself).

If PPN 015 applies, the authority will need to set (via the PSQ – see above!) conditions of participation to assess whether a supplier that intends to use a supply chain to deliver the contract has effective payment systems in place to ensure the reliability of that supply chain. The guidance provides questions to assess:

• whether the supplier has paid its suppliers following the contractual terms that it applies to its supply chain; and
• whether, overall, the supplier has paid its suppliers promptly by:

o   paying at least 95% (at least 90% if an action plan is provided) of invoices within 60 days, which is considered an appropriate measure of overall payment promptness, and;

o   meeting the average payment days threshold of at least 55 days for all invoices (this reduces to 45 days once PPN 018 applies from 1 October 2025).

We note the “jump” in numbering from PPN 015 to PPN 018 -presumably this means that new PPNs 016 and 017 will also be issued soon – watch this space.

The draft 2025 Regulations

The parliamentary draughtsmen have also been busy - some new draft regulations have been laid – the Procurement Act 2023 (Consequential and Other Amendments) Regulations 2025 (the “2025 Regulations”).

Once these are in force, you will want to make sure you have the most up to date copy of the Act, the Procurement Regulations 2024 and Provider Selection Regime regulations, all of which are updated as a result.

The 2025 Regulations make amendments to various pieces of legislation, but most particularly to the Procurement Regulations 2024:

• Regulation 12 – supplier exclusion information – provides more scope for suppliers to evidence that a fine has been paid, staff/management altered/preventative steps taken and so on
• Regulations 32 / 39 – Contract Details and Contract Performance Notices – amendments to allow authorities to pick the three most relevant KPIs to include 
• New Regulations 42A and B on the calculation of the tests in the exemptions for vertical/horizontal arrangements

They also amend the Provider Selection Regime Regulations for clinical health care services (the “PSR”) – but, by virtue of the transitional provision at regulation 34, these amendments only affect PSR processes that are commenced on or after 24 Feb 2025:

• The concept of the Central Digital Platform is brought into the PSR (replacing “UK e-notification service”)
• New provisions in Regulation 20 around not accepting excluded suppliers (and the Procurement Act definition of this is imported into the PSR, as well as the Act’s concepts of self-cleaning evidence)
• New Regulations 20A/B/C and D – around the assessment of sub-contractors to see if they are excluded suppliers, the right to exclude suppliers who are a threat to national security, provisions about notifying an excluded supplier and bringing the Act’s debarment regime into the PSR.

Coming Up

We are expecting the following to be published soon:

• Two more pieces of Procurement Act guidance on Electronic Invoicing and the Payment; Payments Compliance Notice (due January)
• A further piece of supplementary guidance - National Security Unit for Procurement (due January)
• Templates for running an Open Procedure under the Act

The Cabinet Office has been running a Beta test of the Central Digital Platform and has extended this to 15^th January 2025 – authorities who would like to take part can email [email protected]

Suppliers are invited to two webinars in January, as follows (click to book)

·       Thursday, 23 January 2025 (10.30-11.30)

·       Friday, 24 January 2025 (11.00-12.00)

We understand that recordings of the supplier sessions will be added to a dedicated supplier information page on GOV.UK.

New Procurement Portal

We hope you like our new Procurement Portal? It has been updated for the new Act and includes some helpful new tools:

• our Notices Generator – allows you to input the contract type, value and award process and it tells you which notices you need to publish for your procurement
• our Procurement Act 2024 Standstill Calculator – calculates the appropriate standstill period under the Act
• our Notices Infographic – a helpful flowchart (produced in partnership with Tussell) to guide you through the notice publication process

We will continue to blog about the latest developments as we approach implementation, so do make sure you are signed up to receive notifications when a new post is published.

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