Implementation of the Public Procurement Act 2023 delayed to February 2025

The Procurement Act 2023 received Royal Assent on 26 October 2023.  This creates a new public procurement rulebook in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It is part of Government's strategy of overhauling EU-derived legislation following Brexit. In April 2024, the Cabinet Office informally announced that it was "working towards a go-live date of" Monday 28 October 2024 (see our May 2024 update). On 12 September 2024, the Cabinet Office announced the Act will now enter into force on 24 February 2025 in a ministerial statement. 

Key takeaways

• Implementation of the UK's new domestic public procurement legislation has been delayed to 24 February 2025.
• Since May 2024, the government has published extensive guidance on the new regime covering the legal framework, what has changed, key points and policy intent.
• If contracting authorities were waiting for the go-live date to pass before launching their public procurement processes under the new Procurement Act 2023, then they will need to revisit their planning.

Background

EU Member States are required to implement and apply various EU directives on public procurement. As result, the UK Government did not have control over the scope of its public procurement rules prior to the end of the Brexit transition period. This has all changed and, as part of delivering Brexit, the Cabinet Office launched its "Transforming Public Procurement" project in December 2020 with the aim of overhauling the UK's existing public procurement rules.

Following extensive consultation with stakeholders, the Procurement Bill was laid before Parliament on 11 May 2022 (see our July 2022 update). The Procurement Act ultimately received Royal Assent on 26 October 2023. However, it did not enter into force immediately as secondary legislation needs to be laid before Parliament to give effect to the new regime and the Cabinet Office was keen that stakeholders have the opportunity to prepare for the new regime.

Timing

The Act was originally set to come into force on 28 October 2024. However, on 12 September 2024, it was announced that the go-live date has been delayed to 24th February 2025.

The delay was announced in a ministerial statement which explained the delay is to allow time for a new National Procurement Policy statement to be developed and published. 

Guidance

Since May 2024, the government has published an extensive set of Procurement Act 2023 guidance documents on the government's website explaining the key features of the new regime (see our May 2024 update for a summary of the key changes). These guidance documents cover many aspects of the Procurement Act 2023, including: the legal framework, what has changed, key points, and policy intent. The guidance also links to the relevant notices and other relevant guidance documents.

The following key pieces of guidance are already available on the government's website: 

• Contracting Authority Definition;
• Covered Procurement;
• Exempted Contracts;
• Utilities Contracts;
• Thresholds;
• Direct Award;
• Dynamic Markets;
• Modifying a Competitive Procurement;
• Concession Contracts; and
• Light Touch Contracts.

However, there are still a few outstanding guidance documents. In particular, the guidance around the central digital platform has not been published yet. This central digital platform tool will offer a comprehensive suite of tools for public procurements, enabling contracting authorities to facilitate contractual transparency in their procurement activities, and is also a portal or repository where suppliers can register and store their details.

Next steps

The requirements of the Public Procurement Act 2023 will now not apply until 24 February 2025, which gives contracting authorities an extra four months to prepare. In terms of actions, a key takeaway from this change of date concerns whether contracting authorities have been planning to launch public procurement procedures on or after 28 October 2024, the previous implementation date for the Procurement Act 2023. 

If authorities were planning to wait for the go-live date to pass before launching their public procurement processes under the new Procurement Act 2023, then authorities will need to revisit their procurement pipeline planning.