New procurement regulations introduced in Febuary 2025 changed the way we do business in public procurement
On 24 February 2025, the new procurement regulations detailed in the Procurement Act 2023 went live. All organisations that supply goods or services to ESPH’s member Councils will need to know about these changes.
The prior procurement regulations will continue to apply for frameworks and contracts that were already in place or progressing beforehand. The new procurement regulations apply to new contracts from February 2025.
The new regulations include:
- a new Central Digital Platform which will make bidding easier for suppliers – suppliers can register company details and specific information which can then be used in bids by all public sector buyers. This platform will be a single place to see all opportunities available
- more opportunities for small businesses and social enterprises so that they can compete for and win public contracts – simplicity and flexibility is key to the design
- more transparency of spending of taxpayers’ money – there are additional stages and levels of detail being introduced to report on activities throughout the procurement and contract life
- simplified bidding processes which will make it easier to bid, negotiate and work in partnership with the public sector
The Cabinet Office led the Transforming Public Procurement programme and provide guidance, training, videos and bulletin updates; we would encourage suppliers to visit their Transforming Public Procurement pages and subscribe to their mailing list for bulletins.
The Central Digital Platform is a single place for suppliers to find out about potential opportunities across the UK that they might wish to bid for, as well as details on contracts that have been awarded, how contracts are being changed and other useful information.
Additionally, suppliers will use the Central Digital Platform to register, input and then share their commonly used information as part of the procurement.
It:
- features a simple registration and identification for both suppliers and buyers
- stores suppliers’ core business details that can be used for multiple bids
- enables easy management and updating of core information quickly, which can be shared easily between suppliers and buyers
- makes public procurement opportunities visible, making it easier to search at no cost and set up alerts for tenders of interest for suppliers
- allows for procurement noticing throughout the procurement lifecycle
- captures procurement data and eventually this will allow the creation of dashboards to analyse that data
See the Factsheet for more information.