ProContract and the
Procurement Act 2023

When creating a project, users can select which regulations to use, from the following:

• Provider Selection Regime 2024
• Procurement Act 2023
• Public Contract Regulations 2015

Based on the regulations selected, corresponding notice forms will be made available to users. Regulation choices also support future reporting requirements.

When creating a new notice, an extra option is provided to allow users to generate new notice types in compliance with the Procurement Act 2023. Old notice types will be still available for procurements started before 24 February 2025.

The following notice types are still be available to users:

• UK2 Preliminary market engagement notice
• UK3 Planned procurement notice
• UK4 Tender notice
• UK5 Transparency notice
• UK6 Contract award notice
• UK7 Contract details notice
• UK10 Contract change notice
• UK11 Contract termination notice
• UK12 Procurement termination notice
• UK13-16 dynamic markets notice types

These notices will be published to the Central Digital Platform (CDP) in compliance with the new regime.

The system will continue to support Frameworks and Dynamic Purchasing Systems (DPS) under the Public Contract Regulations 2015 regime. However, changes have been made to cater for Closed Frameworks, Open Frameworks and Dynamic Markets.

Existing DPS functionality is being expanded to cater for the new Dynamic Markets and Open Frameworks.

New data points related to the Procurement Act 2023 and how ProContact supports the adoption of this, are exposed to our Advance Reporting solution. This will ensure your organisation continues to have good visibility of all sourcing activities across your organisation.

Capability to manage events specific to the Procurement Act 2023 is provided. These new event types allow for workflows to be built, which support the management of Dynamic Markets and Open Frameworks under the new regime.

Standstill periods for events created under the Procurement Act 2023 and Provider Selection Regime 2024, are calculated based on 8 working days rather than the 10 calendar days under the previous regime. 

In order to publish notices, and view supplier responses within the Supplier Information System (SIS) elements of the Centralised Digital Platform (CDP), buyers need to first register with the CDP.

Updates to ProContract allow buyers to store their Public Procurement Organisation Number and Central Digital Platform API Key.  This information is required to publish each notice and view supplier responses.

Centralised Digital Platform (CDP) functionality requires suppliers to first register as a supplier, and then complete responses to standard questions.

Suppliers are required to download their responses from the CDP and upload them into ProContract as part of their response. The system has the ability for these to be uploaded and the supplier must confirm that they have provided all the necessary documentation from CDP that the buyer has requested.

To help users select appropriate Workflows for the Procurement Act 2023, additional constraints are setup to ensure only compliant Workflow options are available to users when creating new projects under the Procurement Act 2023 regime.

Buyers should be prepared for an increased workload with the introduction of the Procurement Act 2023.

The new procurement processes include additional requirements to:

• Produce of a higher number of notices. This includes, but is not limited to - planned procurement notices, transparency notices, and pipeline notices.
• Report on contract performance, including spending and poor performance.
• Report on payments made during the term of a contract.

These requirements are outside of our control and cannot be bypassed.