Procurement Act 2023: Implementation date change

The delayed implementation date of the Procurement Act 2023 until 24th February 2025 gives contracting authorities the opportunity to draw breath, stand back, and reassess their readiness plans and appetite for more transformational activity.

From our extensive Procurement Act readiness support over the last 12 months to different departments and Government teams, we believe there are three critical considerations, depending on your levels of preparation and procurement pipeline:

1.? For organisations already well advanced in their planning to be compliant ahead of go-live:?

This delay provides an opportunity to take stock and re-assess your readiness, and consider how your approach to the changes compares to others:

• Have you got the basics covered, ensuring you’re fully compliant from day one?
• Can you give your leadership team / Assurance Committee confidence that you have prepared for change effectively?

The delay also means you have an opportunity to further take advantage of the new flexibilities under the Act, whilst considering new changes to the National Procurement Policy Statement. Authorities need to find a way to develop effective commercial strategies which consider all the changes to understand if they are compliant and flexibilities considered. We have developed a framework to enable this assessment to be rapidly conducted across a portfolio of strategies.

The additional time may also allow additional streamlining of processes so you are set-up to effectively manage the new transparency and reporting obligations -? for example, we are supporting commercial teams prepare to use AI enabled contract redaction tools to efficiently prepare Contract Award notices.

2.? For organisations yet to get fully ready for the new regime (or yet to really understand what needs to change to be ready): This delay will provide welcome breathing space.? We have supported numerous public sector teams - both big and small - to assess readiness and where needed, update policies, processes, systems and governance. We'd be delighted to discuss how you can be ready ahead of 24th February.

3. Finally -? All public sector procurement teams should review their procurement pipelines to understand which imminent competitions may need to be adjusted to take place under the PCR / UCR and where market engagement has already been conducted, prepare to signal the changes to prospective tenderers.

Teams should also identify those procurements due to be launched early in 2025, since particular care needs to be taken to ensure there is clarity on which regime they will be delivered under.?

If you’d like to discuss the changes to the implementation date and what they mean to your organisation, or would like a friendly discussion on your wider readiness activities, please do get in touch.