The Cabinet Office has launched a special unit to oversee the new procurement regime, which has come into force today.
The Procurement Act 2023, introduced to reform how public procurement is carried out in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, was given royal assent on 26 October 2023. It aims to make the UK’s public procurement regime quicker, simpler, more transparent and better able to meet the UK’s needs while remaining compliant with international obligations.
The Procurement Review Unit, launched today, will have responsibility for oversight of the new regime, initially aiming to ensure that the changes introduced by the Act are embedded within contracting authorities.
The PRU will also investigate contracting authorities – to ensure compliance with the Act – and suppliers – to see if they should be added to the centrally-published debarment list which will be established under the Act. Private utilities and some NHS personal care services are, however, out of scope of the new unit.
The Cabinet Office said the PRU will help to raise standards through early identification and rectification of systemic and institutional breaches.
It said the unit will also help to protect public contracts and public money from suppliers who pose risk by providing central consideration of evidence provided by suppliers in order to assess whether circumstances which lead to exclusion are continuing or likely to occur again. It will also support greater consistency and efficiency of supplier exclusions across the public sector.
The PRU will consist of three services:
- Public Procurement Review Service: This service was introduced in 2011 and focuses on suppliers’ complaints about specific procurements and late payments.
- Procurement Compliance Service: This service investigates contracting authorities’ compliance with the requirements of the Procurement Act 2023 and may issue (and if desired, publish) statutory recommendations to the contracting authority being investigated and/or guidance that applies more generally to contracting authorities following the conclusion of an investigation.
- Debarment Review Service: This service aims to protect public money from suppliers who pose risks by conducting investigations into suppliers to determine whether they are excluded or excludable suppliers and whether they should be added to the public debarment list. The service is also responsible for managing the debarment list.
Separate to the PRU, the government has launched a new National Security Unit for Procurement, which has responsibility for debarment, exclusion, and termination cases which engage the national security grounds. Also based in the Cabinet Office, the security unit will work closely with the Debarment Review Service.