Home / Buyer Services / Public Sector Procurement / Procurement Act / Main Contractors
We’re here to help you understand how the Procurement Act (2023) impacts Main Construction Contractors and make it work to your advantage in the Public Sector Construction industry.
Make the Act work for you.
Effective from 24th February 2025 (previously 28th October 2024**), the Procurement Act aims to give Contracting Authorities more autonomy in their Tender Awards. It encourages more streamlined processes, with the intention of prioritising strategically advantageous tenders as opposed to being assessed simply on best price. Overall, with great spending in public sector procurement, the Procurement Act seeks to give smaller subcontractors a better opportunity at winning work.
The Procurement Act aims to provide Main Contractors with greater commercial freedom to design procurement processes that meet their exact needs and drive innovation. Equally, it benefits subcontractors throughout public procurement processes, simplifies bidding, and removes barriers so they have easier access to public sector contracts, including Main Contractors’ supply chains.
When working with subcontractors, notable changes to be aware of include:
Whilst the Procurement Act opens subcontractors up to more work, the Debarment List saves Main Contractors time filtering through which subcontractors may pose a risk to their Public Sector Tender. If they have previously underperformed, the Procurement Act serves the right for them to be moved to the list, protecting Contractors’ reputation in the process by working with suitable subcontractors.
Promotes better transparency through the contract lifecycle
More opportunity to promote your ESG credentials
Flexibly designed procurement processes that fit Main Contractors’ and Subcontractors’ needs
Creates greater commercial freedom and considers the wider value and impact of a tender
Our solutions help you stay on the right side of the legislation.
Get commercial freedom and flexibility in Tender processes sooner through our platform.
The Building Safety Act is critical for public builds.
Automatically scan through your construction supply chain to identify subcontractors whose competence, knowledge and behaviours meet the legislation.
Perfect for Contractors working on Private and Public Sector Tenders, you can make use of the following features sooner:
Watch our short video series to help you understand the Procurement Act.
This video sets out the changes in the procedures available to contracting authorities to procure their construction contracts, including staged awards and the rules on engaging with suppliers during this process. It should be watched by buyers, estimators, and surveyors, but also due to the content on staged awards, by contract/project managers.
This video sets out the rules that contracting authorities must apply when procuring works contracts below £5.37 million (the point at which they become public contracts). For many contracting authorities, below-threshold procurements amount to most of their procurements, so for SMEs, these rules are significant. This video should be watched by estimators (and potentially surveyors, contract/project managers, and senior management).
This video sets out the new rules around frameworks, open frameworks, and dynamic markets. Being on one of these contracts/arrangements can have a significant impact on accessing opportunities in the public sector; this session sets out what they are and how they work in practice. It should be watched by estimators (and potentially surveyors, contract/project managers, and senior management).
Key information to help Construction Main Contractors and Subcontractors understand how the Procurement Act affects them.
* https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9317/ (House of Commons 2024)
** https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/transforming-public-procurement (GOV.UK, 2024)
Discover which solutions can help you make the Procurement Act work to your advantage.
