Regulated procurement | UK Regulatory Outlook March 2025

New guidance on the Procurement Review Unit

Following the Procurement Act 2023 going live last month, the Cabinet Office published new guidance on the Procurement Review Unit (PRU). The PRU plays an oversight role, and will initially, focus on ensuring changes are being embedded within contracting authorities. The PRU has powers to investigate contracting authorities to ensure compliance with the Act, and may issue guidance to authorities generally as a result of these investigations. This is a different process from bringing a legal challenge to a procurement and does not result in the re-winding of a procurement or any payment of damages if non-compliance is identified. Within the PRU, the debarment review service will be notified of decisions by authorities to exclude suppliers, and may investigate those suppliers for possible addition to the debarment list. Private utilities and some NHS personal care services are out of scope of the PRU.

Guidance published on exclusion and termination on national security grounds

The Cabinet Office has published guidance on exclusion and termination specifically focused on national security grounds, which is intended as a supplement to existing guidance on exclusions, debarment and termination. The new guidance provides details of the National Security Unit for Procurement, the different national security interests which could be affected and examples of various forms of potential attack. It provides a detailed process for contracting authorities to assess suppliers.

In addition to this guidance, the Cabinet Office has also published guidance on the National Security Unit for Procurement (NSUP). The NSUP will support ministers in assessing suppliers on national security grounds. Unlike other grounds in the Act, a national security exclusion or contract termination requires agreement from a Minister of the Crown, following referral to the NSUP by a contracting authority. The guidance provides information on this referral process.

CMA issues new guidance on exclusion and debarment on competition grounds under the Procurement Act 2023

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has published new guidance regarding exclusion and debarment on competition grounds. The guidance includes information on when a mandatory or discretionary exclusion applies, the self-cleaning assessment and steps suppliers may take to avoid exclusion or debarment.

Suppliers should be aware that the Procurement Act 2023 expands the mandatory and discretionary exclusion grounds in relation to breaches of competition law and should review this guidance of when they could be excluded and if so, the steps they would need to take to self-clean.

Government model contracts updated for Procurement Act 2023

In line with the Procurement Act 2023 going live, the Cabinet Office has updated its standard contract document collections, templates and guidance for the government’s Model Services Contract, Mid-Tier Contract and Short Form Contract.

Alongside these, Procurement Policy Note 013 on using the standard contracts has been published providing guidance to authorities on how to use the updated documents.

What does the abolishment of NSHE mean for NHS procurement?

This month it was announced that the government will be abolishing NHS England and will merge it with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). This will have a number of implications for NHS procurement?

Over the next two years, existing contracts between NHS England and its suppliers will need to be novated to the DHSC. For new contracts that would have been procured by NHS England under the Procurement Act 2023 (such as for goods and non-healthcare services), the DHSC can procure those contracts under the same legislation. Suppliers will notice some changes in what and how contracts are procured, in particular we expect to see greater centralisation of approach, but fundamentally, the same legal principles will apply.

In relation to healthcare services that would have been procured by NHS England under the NHS Provider Selection Regime (PSR), however, the legislation does not currently allow the DHSC to award contracts under that legislation. The government will need to amend the legislation to grant DHSC this power, and until these amendments are enacted, we expect NHS England to continue procuring essential contracts under the PSR.