At the end of February, the government shared an email update on its plans for implementation of the Procurement Act 2023.
The headline is that the government is still planning for an implementation date in October 2024.
The Procurement Regulations 2024
The update has confirmed that a response to the consultation last summer on secondary legislation will be published “in the coming weeks”, and that the Procurement Regulations 2024 (as they will be called) will be published mid-late March.
Learning & Development
The Knowledge Drops are already available and will be joined in April by the new e-Learning modules available to all contracting authorities and other nominated individuals who act on their behalf. The final element of the L&D offer, the Communities of Practice, are expected to go live in May.
Official Guidance
The government plans to publish official guidance on a range of Act-related topics, starting this month and heading into June. These will be posted to the Transforming Public Procurement .gov pages.
Central Digital Platform
The update also provided an insight into how the online platform will work. It will fully integrate all the online requirements under the Act, covering Notices, as well as Supplier Information and Supplier Registration; government is working with e-procurement system providers to deliver the platform. This has included releasing several of the new notices into the beta test environment.
Procurement Review Unit (PRU) / National Security Unit
The update suggests that work is ongoing to establish the scope and operational remit of the PRU, with a publication of PRU's “Oversight Ambitions” paper expected this month. PRU is also in consultation with certain contracting authorities who undertake strategic supplier management around how they and PRU might work together to manage potential debarment cases. The question of how debarment will work in practice and its likely extent is one that is of interest to authorities and suppliers alike.
The update also confirms the creation of a National Security Unit for Procurement (NSUP) within Cabinet Office, whose job will be to handle exclusion/debarment where this falls within the new powers under the Act to exclude/debar suppliers who represent a threat to UK national security.
Our resources on the Procurement Act
When the response to the consultation on the secondary legislation, and the Procurement Regulations 2024 are available, we will be updating the materials on our Reform page, which you might like to bookmark.
You might also like to sign up for our free 5 in 25 webinar series, where we look at each phase of a procurement through the lens of the Act. On 6th March, 1000-1030, we are looking at the tender phase and the impact that the Procurement Act is likely to have – sign up here to register. If you missed any of our previous webinars, you can find them all here.