Regulated procurement | UK Regulatory Outlook November 2024

UK government launch consultation on eradicating modern slavery in NHS supply chains

On 20 November, the government launched a consultation on proposals to prevent goods that are linked with modern slavery from being sourced in the NHS. New regulations will be introduced to legally require public bodies procuring goods and services for the NHS to identify and mitigate the risk of modern slavery in supply chains.

The new regulations will apply to all public bodies procuring health goods and services (including NHS trusts, integrated care boards and local authorities) and will require them to undertake risk assessments and to take reasonable steps to mitigate identified modern slavery risks in order to remove modern slavery from their supply chains. 

The regulations will apply to all contracts for goods and services supplied to the NHS and also contain requirements for frameworks and dynamic markets. The draft guidance published alongside the consultation provides further detail on how to comply with these duties, including using the modern slavery assessment tool to identify risks and relevant reasonable steps for low, medium and high risks that public bodies can take.

The wide scope of the regulations is notable, as it impacts any public body procuring any goods or services (other than excluded goods and services) for the purposes of the health service in England, beyond just NHS entities. This includes a wider scope of entities than the current procurement policy note 02/23: tackling modern slavery in government supply chains which only applies to central government departments, executive agencies, non-departmental public bodies and, notably, NHS bodies. The new regulations will not apply retrospectively, but those in-scope public bodies will still be required to comply with PPN 02/23.

Suppliers of goods and services provided to the NHS will be required to supply relevant information about their supply chains and may face barriers to future contracts if they cannot provide information that demonstrates alignment with the new regulations.

The consultation closes on 13 February 2025.

Are you prepared for the forthcoming changes on prompt payment terms for public tendering in the UK?

Among the measures Rachel Reeves announced in her Budget was that, from October 2025, companies must report average payment days of 45 or fewer in either of the two previous six-month reporting periods and continue to meet the existing requirement to pay 95% (90% with an action plan) of invoices within 60 days. If a company does not meet this measure, it will not meet the conditions to participate in procurements for central government contracts worth over £5m.

At present, contracting authorities are only required to ask questions about supplier payment times, with no specific consequences for suppliers if they fall below the targets.

This announcement creates a new and direct link between two previously separate areas of the public procurement regime – prompt payment and not meeting a pass/fail criteria for being able to participate in procurements for central government contracts worth over £5m. Read our Insight for more.

Guidance published on the Central Digital Platform

The Cabinet Office has published guidance and a factsheet on the central digital platform (CDP) under the Procurement Act. The CDP will be where all UK contracting authorities publish information relating to procurements, including procurement notices, and will also be used to store core supplier information.

Once registered, suppliers will input their commonly used information and may then choose to share this with authorities they wish to bid to. Over time, the CDP will be the go-to place to find not only opportunities to bid for, but also for information on contracts that have been let, how the awarded supplier is performing and how contracts are being changed. The CDP guidance also contains some helpful comments on the types of situations in which information which should otherwise be published in a notice may be withheld from publication, including some breakdown of what "sensitive commercial information" is in these circumstances.

Suppliers only need to register at the point that they want to bid for a contract after the law comes into force on 24 February 2025.

MoD announces major defence reforms

The defence secretary has launched the biggest reform of the defence sector to fix what the Public Accounts Committee calls the "broken" defence procurement system and to strengthen UK defence. As part of this reform, the Ministry of Defence is creating a new National Armaments Director to ensure that the armed forces are suitably equipped, lead on UK defence exports and ensure that procurement is closely aligned with wider government, industry and international partners.