Plan
Here you will find guidance on the upcoming legislative changes that form the Procurement Reform in Wales.
Procurement Act
What is the benefit to public sector organisations?
One of the major changes of the Procurement Act 2023 is the increased transparency requirement, including pipeline publishing. Being transparent with your pipeline will bring many benefits, including:
Ensuring your procurement activity is published ahead of time will give SMEs the chance to see them in advance as well as plan their capacity ahead of the tender, giving them more opportunity to respond to tenders. For a contracting authority this means better competition and more innovative responses.
Not just SMEs and VCSEs need to manage their internal capacity when considering bidding and delivering work for the public sector. By publishing your pipeline, you allow the whole market to prepare for upcoming procurements, ensuring they can manage their internal resources accordingly, produce a quality bid and deliver a quality service.
Other contracting authorities may be buying something similar to you. By publishing your pipeline early you can identify opportunities for collaboration and co-commissioning across Wales and wider. You can also begin to identify potential pinch points for suppliers that may be caused by several similar procurements being live at the same time. This means you will have the ability to manage your procurement timeline in a way that does not overburden the market, especially SMEs, again ensuring you are increasing competition.
UK Cabinet Office Guidance
The UK Cabinet Office has published guidance documents for the sections of the Procurement Act 2023 that are relevant to the Plan phase.
To see the guidance visit the Procurement Act 2023 guidance documents – Plan phase.