New report: What the Procurement Act's first six months show

If you sell to the public sector, the biggest change right now is the signal you get before a tender lands.

The first six months of data since the Procurement Act went live shows buyers are publishing more "early stage" notices, using new notice types more confidently and putting fresh weight on things like social value.

For small UK suppliers, that changes where the work starts. It starts earlier than the tender.

Here's what stood out from a new report on the Act's first six months.

Early notices have become the main clue trail

More buyers are using pipeline notices and early market engagement notices to flag what's coming and to test the market before they publish a tender.

That's useful because it's often the only point where you can influence what gets bought and how.

If you're only reacting when a tender hits your alerts, you're often walking into something that's already shaped by whoever engaged early.

Not through anything dodgy, just because buyers refine specs based on who shows up.

The pattern is clear too.

Local authorities are very active in publishing pipeline signals, while central government tends to dominate when you look at the value attached to those pipelines.

A relatively small group of organisations are publishing these notices repeatedly, which tells you this behaviour is already embedded in parts of the public sector.

Tender volumes look lower, but planning activity hasn't disappeared

One of the more confusing findings is that tender notice volumes still look below where they were before the Act. That can make the market feel quieter than it is.

But at the same time, "future opportunity" signals are up. In plain terms, buyers are doing more of their public signalling earlier in the process.

So, if your tracking is built around live tenders only, you're going to feel like opportunities have dropped off, even when spending is still being planned.

This is a change of processes more than anything. You need a pipeline view that includes pre-tender signals, not just open competitions.

Competitive Flexible Procedure is being used for the big stuff

Even if your business isn't big enough to lead one of these large contracts, it can still affect you.

A lot of high-value public sector work runs through frameworks (approved supplier lists that buyers use to award work over a set period).

If you're not on the framework, you often can't access the work. If you are, you may get invited to compete for smaller jobs later.

Big frameworks also influence who the main winners are.

Those winners then bring in smaller specialist firms to help deliver, so the framework results can shape who you partner with and what buyers start expecting from the supply chain.

The Competitive Flexible Procedure is a newer route where the buyer can design the competition in different ways rather than following one fixed template.

So, a tender might include extra steps like meetings, a second round, site visits or requests to tweak your offer, which changes how you plan time, people and bid costs.

Social value is moving from "nice to have" to "scored properly"

The report shows a sharp rise in tender notices that explicitly reference social value within award criteria.

That's a big deal because it pushes social value out of the generic boilerplate zone and into the part of the bid that buyers actively grade.

If the social value section of your bid is still a standard paragraph you paste into everything, it'll show.

Buyers are looking for credible, specific delivery plans that match their local priorities. And you'll often get a better read on those priorities if you engage earlier, before the tender is fixed.

Reserved contracts exist, but aren't yet widespread

Reserved contracts for SMEs and voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations are appearing, but they're still a small slice of overall notices.

So it's not a magic switch that suddenly makes the public sector easy.

But it does create pockets of opportunity that didn't exist in the same way before. The suppliers who benefit will be the ones who actually track and filter for reserved opportunities, rather than hearing about them second-hand.

There's also early movement around geography-based reservations in certain areas.

This is worth watching closely because it can affect how councils think about local delivery and local economic benefit, and where they choose to ringfence their spending.

Framework signals are getting louder and earlier

In some categories, frameworks dominate procurement activity.

Tussell's report shows early market engagement notices being used to flag new frameworks and newer structures like open frameworks and dynamic markets.

If frameworks matter in your sector, timing is everything.

Finding out when the tender drops is often too late to shape the approach, line up partners or get your evidence in order.

Catching the signal at the engagement stage gives you time to prepare properly and influence what "good" looks like.

What this ultimately means for small suppliers

The report doesn't paint a picture of procurement getting simpler overnight. It does show the centre of gravity shifting earlier.

If you want a practical takeaway, it's to broaden what you monitor. Not by doing more work, but by starting your pipeline earlier and treating early notices as part of your sales process.

Tussell's full report goes into the detail behind these patterns, including the breakdowns by buyer type, notice type and value.

If you're planning your public sector pipeline for the next year, it's worth downloading so you can see how these trends map to your market and target authorities.

Read the report in full

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