Countdown to the Procurement Act
After passing through Parliament, the Procurement Act comes into effect one week today.
The Act represents a significant opportunity for small businesses to sell to government; either directly or via strategic and large suppliers.
Ahead of the Act coming into force, Minister for Procurement, Georgia Gould MP, issued a National Procurement Policy Statement, with positive measures for SMEs, being: ?
Read more about the Statement in this post. ?
The intent from central government is clear; to be more transparent in sharing contract pipelines and making it easier for small firms to be part of early market engagement. There is commitment to consult on the problem to be solved before moving to a procurement, meaning small firms have the opportunity to pitch innovative and alternative approaches. ?
In response, it’s time for small firms to prepare for potential new contracts. ?
Many founders opt for selling to the public sector via onboarding into the supply chain of strategic suppliers who are winning government work. This is something on which Enterprise Nation will be focused throughout 2025 in the form of connecting SMEs to strategic suppliers and offering training and education on how to get fit to supply. ?
We are delivering such a programme for the West Midlands Combined Authority and have welcomed strong engagement from SME Crown Representative, Shirley Cooper OBE , who is a champion for small firms at the heart of the commercial function of government. ?
Efforts will be supported by Maggie Berry OBE who joins Enterprise Nation on 4th March to ensure we are playing our part in ensuring SMEs make the most of the Procurement Act.
Let's get fit and ready!
Building Winning Teams | Head of Recruitment at StaffingPartner | 4,700+ Successful Hires Across Europe ??
2 周Great insights, Emma! ?? What inspired this post?
sme crown representative head of office at Cabinet Office
2 周It's a few years since I worked alongside Emma (and then Martin Traynor) in this space and I'm pleased that some of the issues that we heard about and that the "mystery shopper" team took up are being addressed here. My particular bugbear was some of the inflexibility in the application of framework agreements and dynamic procurememt systems. Hopefully these reforms should see better access for SMEs to catalogue type buying systems and avoid companies with good solutions being locked out of public sector markets for longish periods.
Passionate about diverse-owned businesses, inclusive supply chains, SMEs and women succeeding in tech.
2 周Very much looking forward to working with the Enterprise Nation team and increasing opportunities for SMEs to successfully sell their products and services into the public sector.
Founder. MD. Consulting CMO. Chair. Chartered Marketer|Top100 CMO|Top5 Marketing Strategist|Top50 Business Growth Advisor|Outstanding Mentor??On a mission supporting entrepreneurs to launch, grow & exit valuable brands??
2 周Excellent to see this Emma Jones. ???? Been a while in the making since Enterprise Nation’s various activity supporting this important topic including the Access all Areas Report and associated panel discussion July 2022. Can take time to effect change and action what’s worth doing, but it’s worth doing! Here’s hoping it will enable SMEs to win business and more simply.??