Public tendering changed on 24 February 2025, when the Procurement Act 2023 took over. There are now only two competitive procedures, awards go to the most advantageous tender, and two things an authority may no longer demand of you are audited accounts and insurance in place before award.
Two procedures, not five
Section 20 permits only two competitive tendering procedures.
The open procedure is a single-stage process with no restriction on who can submit a tender. The tender notice and the tender documents are published together on the central digital platform, and exclusions and conditions of participation are assessed after tenders are received but before award. So you prepare a full tender without being pre-qualified.
The competitive flexible procedure is whatever other competitive procedure the authority considers appropriate. It may be multi-stage, may limit the number of suppliers progressing to the next stage, may incorporate negotiation, dialogue or a demonstration stage, and may include a stage for design, development and testing of the solution. Award criteria set out in the tender notice can be refined as it progresses.
For bidders that flexibility cuts both ways. It allows a procurement shaped around a real problem rather than a rigid template — and it means two competitions run by the same authority may look nothing alike. Read the procurement's own rules rather than assuming they match the last one.
Most advantageous tender
Section 19 allows award to the supplier submitting the most advantageous tender — the one satisfying the authority's requirements and best satisfying the award criteria, assessed against the stated methodology and relative importance.
This replaced the "most economically advantageous tender" of the old regulations, which were revoked on 24 February 2025. Be careful how you read the change, because it is commonly oversold. The Cabinet Office's own guidance says in terms: "this is not a change in policy". Dropping "economically" clarifies that tenders need not be awarded on lowest price or cost, and that price need not take precedence over non-price factors. It is a relabelling with a clarifying purpose, not a new test.
Under section 23 the criteria must relate to the subject matter, be "sufficiently clear, measurable and specific", comply with the technical specification rules, and be a proportionate means of assessing tenders having regard to the nature, complexity and cost. The authority must describe its assessment methodology and indicate relative importance through weightings, ranking or another description. Subject matter extends to production stages, supply timing and methods, staff qualifications where relevant to quality, and price, other costs or value for money.
What an authority may not require
Section 22 governs conditions of participation, which must be a proportionate means of ensuring suppliers have the requisite legal and financial capacity or technical ability. Two prohibitions are worth knowing by heart.
Audited accounts. A condition may not require the submission of audited annual accounts, "except from suppliers who are, or were, required to have the accounts audited in accordance with Part 16 of the Companies Act 2006 or an overseas equivalent".
That matters directly to smaller bidders. A company entitled to audit exemption cannot be required to produce audited accounts as a condition of participation. If an invitation to tender demands them regardless, the requirement is not lawful — and saying so politely, early, is better than either bluffing or withdrawing.
Insurance. A condition may not require insurance relating to performance of the contract to be in place before award. What an authority can ask for is evidence that the cover will exist by the time the contract starts, so a broker's letter confirming terms answers the question. You should not be buying speculative cover at bid stage.
Transparency across the lifecycle
The Act runs on notices, and a supplier that watches them sees work coming. The main ones: a pipeline notice at section 93, a planned procurement notice at section 15, a preliminary market engagement notice at section 17, the tender notice at section 21, and after award a contract award notice at section 50 and a contract details notice at section 53. Contract change, performance and termination all have their own notices too.
The tender notice commences the procedure and must carry sufficient information to allow suppliers to prepare their tenders, published with the associated tender documents on the central digital platform.
Assessment summaries and the standstill
This is the most useful change for unsuccessful bidders. Before entering into a contract, the authority must publish a contract award notice — and before doing that, must provide an assessment summary to every supplier that submitted an assessed tender, covering the assessment of that tender and, if different, of the most advantageous one.
So you are entitled to see how your tender was scored against the winner's, without asking.
Then the clock. Section 51 sets a mandatory standstill period of eight working days beginning with the day the contract award notice is published, during which the contract cannot be entered into. It does not apply to certain contracts — extreme and unavoidable urgency, direct award to protect life, private utility awards, awards under a framework, awards by reference to a dynamic market, and light touch contracts — but where a voluntary standstill is stated for those, it may not be less than eight working days either.
Eight working days is not long. If you intend to challenge, the assessment summary and the standstill are the window, and it closes quickly.
Exclusion and debarment
Section 57 splits suppliers into excluded — where a mandatory ground in Schedule 6 applies to the supplier or an associated person and the circumstances are continuing or likely to recur, or where they are on the debarment list under a mandatory ground — and excludable, on the equivalent test for the discretionary grounds in Schedule 7.
The debarment list under section 62 is published, and its entries state the ground, whether it is mandatory or discretionary, and the date the Minister expects the ground to cease to apply. A supplier gets prior notice and an eight-working-day debarment standstill before entry, with routes to interim relief, removal and appeal.
The point for bidders: exclusion can reach you through an associated person — a sub-contractor or group company — so due diligence down your own supply chain is part of bid preparation.
Preparing a bid that survives
Read the procurement's own rules first, since the flexible procedure means they vary. Get the financial evidence ready in the form you are actually entitled to submit rather than the form the template asks for. Answer the award criteria in the order and weighting given. Check your associated persons. And diarise the standstill from the day the award notice appears.
Our guide to procurement frameworks covers the call-off route, which is a different path to the same work.
Acumon supports suppliers on the financial elements of public sector bids through statutory accounts, management accounts and public sector audit work, with grant audit for the reporting that follows. If an invitation to tender is demanding audited accounts and you are audit-exempt, that is a condition worth querying before you spend money on the bid.