24 February 2025. That's the date UK procurement law changed. Not in some abstract regulatory sense — in ways that affect the notices you read, the procedures you bid through, and the questions you answer on selection questionnaires. Here's the specific stuff that's different now.
Procedure Names: What's Gone, What's Stayed, What's New
The Open Procedure is still called the Open Procedure. It still works the same way — a single-stage process where any supplier can submit a full tender. If most of your bidding is Open Procedure, your day hasn't changed.
The Restricted Procedure is gone. Under PCR 2015, it was the most common multi-stage route — a shortlisting stage followed by an invitation to tender. It no longer exists as a named procedure under the Act.
Competitive Dialogue and Competitive Procedure with Negotiation are also gone as named procedures. In their place: the Competitive Flexible Procedure. Contracting authorities can now design their own multi-stage process using this framework. That means each procurement using the Competitive Flexible Procedure may look different from the last one. Read the Contract Notice carefully — don't assume the process mirrors what you've done before.
New Notice Types You Need to Know
Under PCR 2015, the main notices were the Contract Notice (advertising the opportunity) and the Contract Award Notice (telling you who won). The Act introduces three new types that matter for suppliers.
Pipeline Notices
Required for contracts worth £2 million or more. Published on FTS. These give you an advance look at what a contracting authority plans to procure in the next 18 months. This is forward-market intelligence — use it to time your BD activity, build relationships early, and prepare before specifications are written.
Transparency Notices
Used when a contracting authority is awarding a contract without running a full competitive process — for example, under a direct award justification. These notices make what was previously invisible, visible. If a competitor is winning contracts without competition, you'll now see it.
Dynamic Markets
Dynamic Markets replace Dynamic Purchasing Systems (DPS) under PCR 2015. The concept is the same — a pre-qualified list of suppliers that buyers can call off from — but the rules around joining and using them have been updated. If you were on a DPS, check whether your registration carries over or whether you need to reapply.
The Selection Questionnaire: More Standardised Now
Under PCR 2015, the Selection Questionnaire (SQ) — or Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) — varied significantly between contracting authorities. Some used the Cabinet Office standard model. Others didn't. The result was suppliers maintaining dozens of slightly different versions of the same financial and compliance information.
The Act pushes further towards standardisation. The content of selection criteria is more tightly defined, and authorities have less freedom to ask bespoke questions at the selection stage. That's genuinely good news — it means your standard SQ responses should travel better between procurements.
The Award Notice Window: 30 Days, Not 90
Under PCR 2015, the standstill period — the gap between notifying suppliers of the award decision and signing the contract — was 10 days. What's changed is the award notice itself. Contracting authorities now have 30 days to publish the Contract Award Notice after signing a contract, reduced from 90 days under PCR 2015. In practice this means award information appears on FTS faster. For competitive intelligence — seeing who won what, at what value — this is a meaningful improvement.
Key Point
The standstill period (10 calendar days or 15 for postal notification) hasn't changed. Your window to challenge an award before contract signature is the same as it was.
What Hasn't Changed
Here's the honest answer to the question most suppliers are really asking: does any of this change how you write a bid? Mostly no.
- •Evaluation criteria still need to be published in advance, applied consistently, and scored against stated weightings
- •The requirement to demonstrate relevant experience, financial stability, and technical capability hasn't changed
- •Social value has been part of public procurement since 2012 — the Act formalises it further but doesn't introduce it
- •How you write a compelling bid — clear structure, evidence-backed claims, demonstrating value not just cost — is unchanged
- •The thresholds that trigger full FTS advertising have been updated (see our thresholds post for the new numbers), but the principle is the same
The Practical Checklist
- 1.Update any templates or training materials that reference PCR 2015 procedure names
- 2.Set up FTS pipeline notice monitoring for your target buyers
- 3.Check any Dynamic Purchasing System registrations — they may have been converted to Dynamic Markets, or you may need to reapply
- 4.Brief your bid team on the Competitive Flexible Procedure — they need to read each procurement's specific process rules, not assume it mirrors previous experience
- 5.Know the Procurement Review Unit exists if you have a complaint about a process
The Procurement Act 2023 is a meaningful update. It's not a reinvention. The suppliers who'll find it disruptive are those who assumed the procedures were fixed and never read the rules carefully anyway. If you've always read procurement documents properly, you'll adapt quickly.