Route 5: run a process compliant with the Procurement Act 2023 for high value purchases
How schools can buy high value things and comply with the Procurement Act 2023.
This is legally required for purchases over the public procurement threshold set out in Procurement Act 2023 unless you use a framework agreement.
This guide is for information only to provide an overview of the process. You should get legal advice and make sure you fully understand the Procurement Act 2023. We recommend that you complete the free, Procurement Act 2023 training. There are many new obligations that you will need to comply with in order to run a successful and compliant process.
In some situations, if you began your procurement before 24th February 2025, then your procurement and contract management will continue to be run under The Public Contracts Regulations 2015. You should seek legal advice if you are unsure whether this applies to you.
Before beginning your procurement process we recommend that you see if you can get what you need using our find a DfE approved framework tool or another framework agreement.
If you need help running your procurement, you can get free and impartial help and support from procurement specialists. We will ask you to complete the training in order for us to support your request.
Register for the free DfE-approved transforming public sector procurement course.
The course:
- aims to give you the knowledge, skills and confidence to manage your procurement under the new legislation
- is suitable for anyone within a school or multi-academy trust (MAT) responsible for running procurements, not just those in a specific commercial role
How to access the training
- Go to Government Commercial College - schools should already be registered on the site or can register for an account.
- Log in and select Find Learning at the top of page.
- Search for Transforming public procurement (TPP).
Register on the central digital platform
As part of The Procurement Act 2023 there will be a central digital platform to allow notices and documents to be published.
This platform will be an enhancement of the existing Find a Tender service. It will make it easier for suppliers to find and bid for contracts, and for you to meet your transparency responsibilities.
Use the instructions on Government Commercial College to register. Your request should be approved within 48 hours.
If what you are buying is over the public procurement threshold, then from the beginning of the procurement process you must show that you have regard for:
- delivering value for money
- maximising public benefit
- sharing information and being transparent
- integrity
- treating suppliers the same
- not putting a supplier at an unfair advantage or disadvantage
- small and medium enterprises
- National Procurement Policy Statements
You will need to be aware of the requirements for each of the following:
- notices required at each stage of the process to be published using the central digital platform
- transparency
- keeping records of material decisions for 3 years
- supplier exclusions
- conflict of interests assessment
- assessment of conditions of participation
- making your invitation to tender and all other documents available electronically
- criteria for assessing all the bids you get fairly and using the same process
- choosing the supplier that offers the most advantageous bid
- awarding the contract to the highest scoring bid supplier
Open procedures and competitive, flexible procedures
You can use the open procedure or the competitive, flexible procedure.
Open procedure
An open procedure allows anyone to bid for your requirement. Use this when what you need is:
- a known requirement
- a simple requirement
- suitable for emerging markets and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)
- suitable for small markets
- suitable for established or known market where there is no need to assess conditions of participation before inviting a tender
Things to remember:
- there is one stage of bidding to a specific specification
- you must consider exclusion grounds
- conditions of participation are the minimum standards that a supplier must satisfy in order to be awarded a contract - they cannot be used to shortlist suppliers
Competitive flexible procedure
You can design your own procurement through a number of stages, using evaluation at each stage to restrict the number of bids. Use this when what you need is:
- an unknown solution
- a complex requirement
- for novel or innovative goods and services
- suitable for a large market
- formal engagement with suppliers during the process such as negotiation or dialogue
- suitable for a small specialist market
- to assess conditions of participation before inviting a submission
Things to remember:
- you can run a multi-stage process, but you must use your notice to detail what your plan is
- the multiple stages will allow you to reduce the number of bidders at each stage
- you will need to evaluate each stage in order to reduce the number of bidders and provide feedback at each stage - build this into your timeline
You can use conditions of participation:
- prior to award
- as a separate condition of the participation stage at the start of the tendering procedure which is used to pre-select participants or limit the number of suppliers in an initial tendering round
- as a separate stage at any point in the tendering procedure to limit or reduce the number of participants who progress to the following stage - this is known as scoring and down-selection
Publish a preliminary market engagement notice
We recommend you publish a preliminary market engagement notice. This is mandatory if you conduct any pre-market engagement. If you do not publish this notice, you will need to justify in your tender notice why this wasn’t published. The notice will contain the:
- initial scope of the requirement or outcome you are intending to achieve
- nature of the engagement
- deadlines for participating
Assessing the market allows you to:
- see how many possible suppliers there are
- speak to potential suppliers
- ask other schools what they have done
- consider whether to conduct an open or competitive flexible procedure
If you do speak to suppliers, make sure that any information you give them at this stage is given to everyone else who bids later and that your specification, contract and tender documents do not favour any particular supplier.
Make all your documents available online from the time you post your tender notice on the central digital platform. Include:
- a timeline
- how to ask questions
- how to submit a bid
- your specification
- a list of things you want prices for
- your award criteria
- the level of service you want
- any contract management needs, such as regular meetings or contact
- if needed, an invitation for suppliers to give a demonstration
- the process and stages you will be following if you are undertaking a competitive flexible procedure
- the proposed contract drafted as far as possible
Before you send out your invitation to tender, decide your ‘award criteria’ – the system you’ll use to decide which bid:
- best meets your specification
- is the most advantageous – the one that best combines price, quality and other factors such as social value
There are specific factors that must be considered when assessing bids, you can learn about these in the training on the Procurement act 2023.
Give each criteria a:
- range of scores – such as 1 to 5, with 5 highest
- weighting – a figure you multiply the score by depending on how important the criteria is
Example If price is most important, you might give it a weighting of 5, so a score of 4 would be worth 20.
Your award criteria must be available to all the bidders.
We recommend you get legal advice on this process.
Set deadlines for:
- the clarification period – when suppliers can ask you questions
- a guide on the length of your competitive flexible stages and assessments
- when suppliers must submit their bid
- when you will award the contract and start the standstill period
When setting deadlines, give enough time for suppliers to:
- understand your needs
- ask questions and use the information in your response
- write a detailed proposal with costs
There are specific minimum timescales you need to use and ways to reduce these timescales. Find out more from the Procurement Act 2023 and get legal advice. You can also complete the DfE-approved training.
You must publish a tender notice on the central digital platform.
For the open procedure, the tender notice must set out:
- the subject matter and description of the requirement
- how the tenders will be assessed including any conditions of participation and the criteria for awarding the contract
- the timescales for both the procurement process and delivery of requirements
For transparency, you must also provide the reasons for any decisions you have taken. For example, if you have:
- done pre-market engagement and not published a notice
- chosen not to award by lots
You must also provide confirmation that a conflicts assessment has been undertaken.
For the competitive flexible procedure, the same requirements apply as for the open tender notice, but you must also:
- set out how the process will be designed and carried out
- include a clear description of the procedure, including the different stages and how they will be assessed
- be clear about whether the award criteria may be refined during the procedure
You should have a clarification stage – a time when suppliers can ask questions. No matter who asks the question, in most cases you should generally:
- send the question and reply to all the bidders with the same information
- anonymise the question, so no one knows who asked it
Do not reveal copyrighted or sensitive information. Ask suppliers if they are happy for you to publish their question and your answer. If they say no, consider their request and give them the opportunity to withdraw the question if you do not agree.
We recommend that you:
- ask suppliers to send questions through an e-tendering solution or by email
- keep a log of the questions and answers you gave and share these with all suppliers
Assess the bids using the award criteria you sent out in your invitation to tender or competitive flexible stage request.
You must:
- not open any bids before the deadline
- treat all bids fairly and equally
- record how you made your decisions so you can defend them if you have to
- keep confidential, secure, auditable records
- award the contract to the highest scoring bidder
- if a supplier has an abnormally low price, you must clarify this with them before discarding their bid
You can ask people to clarify things in their bid if it is not clear. You must not negotiate over bids in the open procedure.
You must assess each stage of the competitive flexible process and notify the suppliers about whether they were successful or unsuccessful.
As part of the procedure, you can have a stage where you can negotiate if this was specified in your tender notice.
Who should assess the bids or stages
It’s best to have at least 2 people assess each bid or stage. When they’re finished they should compare their scores and:
- discuss where they’ve scored differently
- reach an agreed score
This is called moderation. Be aware, the more people involved, the harder it can be to reach an agreed score.
Bring in a specialist if you need expert knowledge to assess criteria, such as a quantity surveyor for building projects or an expert in procurement law.
Keeping records
Keep a record of all scores, comments and moderation decisions. There’s software you can buy or you can use a spreadsheet.
Tell the bidders whether they were successful and provide assessment summaries
Provide written information to all unsuccessful bidders and the successful bidder at the same time. Tell them you are publishing your contract notice and when the standstill period will end. Provide an assessment summary.
Assessment summaries explain to suppliers who won and why they won or did not win the contract. There is specific information the summary should contain, you can learn about this in the Procurement Act 2023 training.
An unsuccessful supplier will receive:
- their own tender assessment summary
- a copy of the successful suppliers assessment summary (which has been redacted to remove any commercially sensitive information where appropriate)
This will allow them to see the relative advantages of the winning tender by comparing the two.
We advise you to avoid feedback meetings with unsuccessful bidders. If you do decide to meet face-to-face, keep notes during the meeting and have more than 1 member of staff present.
Write to them saying they won. Your letter must include:
- the assessment summary
- when the standstill period ends
The letter is an invitation to finalise a contract. But make it clear that:
- you’ll only award them the contract if the standstill period passes without a challenge from another supplier
- there are no commitments, and no work should begin, until both of you have signed the contract
If for any reason they decide not to go ahead with the contract, you can award the contract to the second-highest scoring bidder, if you reserved the right to do so in your original tender documents, or you can rerun the process.
This is a change from the previous standstill letters. You should ensure your assessment summaries and contract awards notice are published on the same day. The standstill will last 8 calendar days.
During the standstill period, if an unsuccessful bidder challenges the fairness of the contract award decision or process, you must contact them and explain that you’ve conducted a fair assessment process and that you’ve kept good records.
Depending on the nature and seriousness of the challenge you may want to get legal advice before responding.
If they then make a legal challenge do not finalise the contract. Seek legal advice and wait to see if the court reviewing the challenge grants ‘interim measures’. If so, you should then wait for the outcome of the legal proceedings.
After the standstill period, tell the successful supplier that you’re placing the contract with them. Your school or organisation and the supplier should then sign the contract.
If they agreed to use your terms and conditions, check that the signed copy they send back is exactly the same as the copy you sent them.
The last copy of the terms and conditions sent by either side is the one that is legally binding, so make sure that you’re the last to sign.
You must place a contract details notice on central digital platform within 30 days of awarding the contract.
Set up a meeting with the supplier to finalise the management and payment arrangements, clarify key performance indicators and agree how you will work together.
You must publish a procurement termination notice for any procurement that is not awarded any time after publishing the tender notice.
If this happened very late in the process, from the evaluation period onwards, you may be at risk of a legal challenge.
You cannot abandon the process because the highest scoring bidder is not the supplier you want.
You can find out more from Navigating the procurement pathway.