The Procurement Act 2023 has governed how UK public bodies buy since 24 February 2025. It replaced the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 and the other older rules for procurements that started on or after that date. Most of it is written for buyers, but a handful of changes matter a great deal to a sole trader or a firm of a few people. This guide covers those, in the order you'll meet them.
Where notices are published
Every notice under the Act goes on Find a Tender, which the government now calls the Central Digital Platform. Below-threshold notices that a buyer advertises must be published there before anywhere else. Contracts Finder still carries notices for procurements that started under the old rules, and devolved portals (Public Contracts Scotland, Sell2Wales, eTendersNI) carry their own nations' notices. Searching and setting up alerts on Find a Tender is free; you never have to pay to see a public opportunity.
You'll also need an account on the platform to bid for larger contracts: it stores your "core supplier information" once so you don't type it into every tender. Our Central Digital Platform guide walks through it.
Thresholds: which rules apply
The full set of rules applies to a "public contract": one valued, including VAT, at or above the threshold in Schedule 1. From 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2027 the thresholds are £135,018 for goods and services bought by central government, £207,720 for goods and services bought by other public bodies, and £5,193,000 for works.
Below those thresholds, Part 6 of the Act applies instead, with lighter rules. A buyer that advertises a below-threshold contract must publish a below-threshold tender notice when the contract is worth £12,000 or more (central government, which now includes NHS trusts) or £30,000 or more (every other buyer), including VAT. Under those amounts there may be no notice at all: the buyer can simply ask for quotes. That's why no alert service, Bidlark included, can show you every small contract.
No pre-qualification stage below the thresholds
Section 85 says that when a buyer invites tenders for a regulated below-threshold contract, it can't restrict who may tender by reference to suppliers' suitability: their legal status, financial capacity or technical ability. In practice that means no separate pre-qualification questionnaire to thin out the field before tenders go in. The buyer can still look at suitability when it decides who wins.
There are exceptions. Section 85 doesn't apply to contracts awarded by devolved Welsh authorities, to call-offs under a framework, or to larger below-threshold works contracts, and concession and utilities contracts aren't regulated below-threshold contracts in the first place (section 84). Schools and transferred Northern Ireland authorities sit outside Part 6 altogether. Bidlark's "No pre-qualification stage" flag only appears where every condition is met. See below-threshold and reserved contracts.
What a buyer can ask you to prove
For larger contracts, buyers set "conditions of participation" (section 22): checks on your legal and financial capacity and your technical ability. They must be proportionate to the contract's nature, complexity and cost. Three rules help small firms in particular:
- Insurance: a buyer can't require the contract's insurance to be in place before it awards. It can ask you to confirm you'll have the required levels when the contract starts, and for evidence of that. Employer's liability insurance, which the law already requires of most employers, can still be asked for.
- Accounts: a buyer can't require audited accounts from a supplier that the Companies Act doesn't require to have them audited. It has to look at other evidence of your finances instead.
- Experience: a buyer can ask for relevant experience, including public sector experience, but not experience with one particular public body.
More on this in our guide to PQQs and selection questions.
Competitions reserved for smaller suppliers
Below the thresholds, buyers can reserve a competition to small and medium-sized enterprises and to voluntary, community and social enterprises. Under section 123 an SME has fewer than 250 staff and either a turnover of £44 million or less or a balance sheet total of £38 million or less, so nearly every Bidlark customer counts. English councils can also reserve smaller competitions to suppliers based in the UK or in a defined local area. Find a Tender notices carry these reservations as codes, which is how Bidlark can flag them.
Feedback, payment and complaints
When a buyer runs a competitive tendering procedure for a public contract, it must send each supplier that submitted an assessed tender an "assessment summary" explaining how its tender was scored. That's useful even when you lose: it tells you what to strengthen next time.
The Act also implies 30-day payment terms into public contracts and below-threshold contracts, and down the supply chain, so a public body or its contractor shouldn't keep you waiting for months. If you have a concern about how a procurement was run, or about late payment, the Procurement Review Unit's Public Procurement Review Service is the place to raise it.
Accuracy matters more than ever
Schedule 7 lists discretionary exclusion grounds. One of them (paragraph 13) applies where a supplier acts improperly in a procurement, which includes giving information that is incomplete, inaccurate or misleading. If you use any drafting help, AI or otherwise, read every sentence before you submit it, and answer honestly if a buyer asks how your bid was prepared.
What this means for a firm of one to nine
- Below-threshold competitions in your field are where you start: lighter process, no shortlisting on suitability, often reserved for firms your size.
- Keep your core supplier information up to date on Find a Tender once, rather than in every bid.
- Don't buy insurance speculatively: check what the contract needs, and when.
- Read the assessment summary when you lose, and save your best answers for next time.