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Public Procurement Consultation 2025: Key Dates and Proposals, and What They Mean for Buyers and Suppliers

In June 2025, the UK government launched a consultation titled Public Procurement: Growing British Industry, Jobs, and Skills. Running from 26th June to 5th September 2025, it was presented to Parliament by the Cabinet Office. The consultation builds on the Procurement Act 2023 and is designed to support the updated National Procurement Policy Statement.

The aim is to use the government’s huge procurement budget to help deliver five national goals: grow the economy, lead in clean energy, cut crime, create more opportunity, and improve the NHS.

The consultation is open to public bodies, businesses, individuals, and other interested groups. The government wants views on whether the proposals will help meet these goals. Feedback will shape future legislation and possible updates to the Procurement Act.

Here’s a breakdown of the key proposals in the consultation and what they could mean for both buyers and suppliers.

 

Key Areas in the Consultation

The proposals focus on improving the impact of public procurement across the UK economy. There are three main themes:

 

  1. Supporting Small Businesses and Social Enterprises
  • Spend Targets and Progress Reports: Large buyers (those spending over £100m a year) must set 3-year targets for how much they spend with small businesses and social enterprises, and report their progress every year. This is about boosting transparency and making it easier for these organisations to win contracts.
  • Prompt Payment Rules: Buyers must exclude suppliers from large contracts (worth more than £5m) if they don’t pay their subcontractors on time (on average within 60 days). This is meant to protect small firms from cashflow problems.
  • More Flexibility for Services to Vulnerable People: The rules may be changed to make it easier for councils and other buyers to award contracts for services like adult and children’s social care without running full competitions.
  • More Payment Reporting: The law would be changed to require reporting on all payments made under public contracts, not just those over £30,000.

 

  1. Strengthening National Capability
  • Security-Related Buying Powers: Ministers would be able to label certain goods or services as critical to national security. Public buyers could then be told to prioritise security when choosing suppliers.
  • Assessing In-House Delivery: Before awarding large contracts (£5m+), buyers would have to carry out a standard assessment to check if delivering the service in-house would be better than outsourcing. This would include a ‘public interest test’ to help decide the best option.

 

  1. Supporting Jobs and Skills
  • Social Value in Award Decisions: Buyers would have to include at least one question in tenders about how suppliers will support jobs, training, or opportunities – and give it at least a 10% weighting.
  • Social Value KPIs and Reporting: For large contracts, buyers must set at least one performance measure linked to jobs, training, or opportunities and report progress publicly.
  • Standardised Social Value Criteria: Buyers would have to use a simplified list of social value measures, created in collaboration with the public sector and suppliers.
  • Flexible Local Delivery of Social Value: Buyers could choose where social value should be delivered – for example, in their own area, the contract location, or where the supplier is based.

 

What It Means For Buyers

If these changes go ahead, public sector organisations will need to adjust how they buy goods and services. Likely actions include:

  • Setting and Tracking SME/VCSE Spend Targets: Buyers must know which suppliers are SMEs or VCSEs and monitor spend with them. Tools like Oxygen Insights’ SME & Regional Spend add-on or better in-house reporting will be important, as you can’t manage what you don’t measure.
  • Checking Supplier Payment Practices: Buyers will need to check how well suppliers pay their own subcontractors to avoid using firms that could later be excluded from big contracts.
  • Adjusting How Services for Vulnerable People Are Procured: Buyers may need to move away from standard procurement routes for some services, using more flexible approaches instead.
  • Doing In-House vs Outsourcing Assessments: Buyers must carefully weigh up the benefits of delivering services internally versus outsourcing, requiring better planning and understanding of internal capacity.
  • Updating Social Value Approaches: Buyers will need to build social value into every stage of procurement – from setting requirements to monitoring delivery. The use of standard criteria could help simplify things overall, but buyers must apply them properly from the start.

 

What It Means For Suppliers

Suppliers aiming to win public sector contracts will also need to respond to these changes. Key implications include:

  • More Chances for SMEs and VCSEs: Greater focus on smaller organisations could open up more opportunities for firms new to the public sector – although on the flip side, large suppliers might find increased competition on some contracts.
  • Prompt Payment Is Essential: Suppliers must pay their subcontractors on time and be able to prove it to avoid being excluded from major contracts.
  • Demonstrating Social Value: Suppliers will need to show how they create jobs, develop skills, or benefit communities. This will involve better evidence and clear reporting.
  • Meeting Standardised Criteria: Using set measures for social value should make bidding easier to understand, but also means suppliers will be held to clear standards and expected to deliver.
  • More Scrutiny: With more data being published, suppliers will face greater scrutiny over both financial and social performance. Some reporting work may fall to suppliers themselves.

 

The Government Wants Feedback – But Will It Take It on Board?

These proposals aim to make public procurement more strategic, fair, and impactful. The goal is to support British businesses, deliver better services, and provide value for money.

Whether it works in practice depends on how well public bodies implement the changes – and how willing suppliers are to adapt.

This consultation, which runs until 5 September 2025 via an online survey, gives all parties a chance to shape the final rules. Whatever the outcome, the government will need to balance its ambitions with the need to keep procurement fair, competitive, and above all, practical.