What is regulated procurement?

As well as complying with their legal obligations under the various regulations that make up national procurement law, contracting authorities should also have regard to procurement policy objectives. These objectives are set out in the form of Procurement Policy Notes (PPNs), published by the Cabinet Office. While not (at the time of writing) having the force of law, many of the PPNs contain procedural and other policy requirements that have to be adhered to by central government departments, their executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies (but represent good practice by any authority carrying out public procurement); other PPNs set out practices that are mandatory for all public bodies.

Of particular interest is the National Procurement Policy Statement, published as part of PPN 05/21. This, in brief, sets out the policy priorities for leveraging public procurement to which all contracting authorities should have regard in their procurement when relevant to the subject matter of the contract and when proportionate to do so. The Statement's accompanying guidance states that the government intends to bring forward legislation when Parliamentary time allows to ensure that: 

• all contracting authorities are required to have regard to the National Procurement Policy Statement when undertaking procurements
• contracting authorities with an annual spend of £200m or more are required from April 2022 to publish procurement pipelines and to benchmark their procurement capability and
• contracting authorities with an annual spend of £100m or more are required from April 2023 to publish procurement pipelines and to benchmark their procurement capability.

Readers are urged to read all the Procurement Policy Notes (PPNs).