THE PROCUREMENT ACT 2023: WHAT ACTUALLY CHANGES FOR FM FRAMEWORKS

What replaced what

The Procurement Act 2023 replaces the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (PCR 2015) as the primary legislation governing public sector procurement in England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate procurement regimes. The Act consolidates several previous sets of regulations into a single legislative framework and introduces new concepts, new procedures, and new transparency obligations.

For FM frameworks, the key changes fall into five categories: the introduction of open frameworks, the four year maximum framework term, the new competitive flexible procedure, the Central Digital Platform transparency obligations, and the revised exclusion and debarment regime. Each of these has practical implications that go beyond terminology.

Open frameworks: the end of the four year lock out

Under PCR 2015, a framework was a closed panel. Once suppliers were appointed, no new suppliers could join until the framework was recompeted at the end of its term. A supplier that missed the appointment window was excluded from every call off for the next four years, regardless of their capability or the market’s evolution.

The Procurement Act introduces open frameworks. These allow new suppliers to join the framework at defined points during its term, typically at intervals set by the framework body. The framework remains competitive at appointment, but the panel is no longer permanently closed. New entrants can apply. Existing suppliers can be reassessed.

This is the provision with the most disruptive potential for FM frameworks. The four year lock out was one of the structural barriers identified in Article 9 that excluded regional and mid market suppliers from national FM frameworks. If open framework entry points adopt proportionate qualification criteria, scaled to the value of the work rather than the value of the lot, they could genuinely widen the supplier base. If they retain the same turnover thresholds, insurance requirements, and case study expectations as the initial appointment, they will deliver the appearance of openness without the reality of access.

The four year maximum term

The Procurement Act sets a maximum framework term of four years, with limited exceptions for defence and utilities. Under PCR 2015, some frameworks ran for longer periods, particularly where the framework body argued that the procurement cost of a four year cycle was disproportionate to the value of the framework.

The four year maximum means more frequent recompetition. For suppliers, this increases the cost of framework participation: more bids, more frequently, with the same bid cost per submission. For buyers, it means more frequent disruption to established procurement relationships. For the market, it means more opportunities for new entrants but also more procurement cost absorbed by all parties.

Combined with open frameworks, the four year maximum creates a procurement environment where the framework panel is never fully settled. Suppliers must bid for appointment, compete at entry points during the term, and rebid at recompetition. The framework shifts from a stable platform to a continuously competitive environment. Whether this produces better outcomes or higher procurement costs is the practical question the market has not yet answered.

The competitive flexible procedure

The Procurement Act introduces a new competitive flexible procedure that gives contracting authorities more freedom to design their own procurement process. Under PCR 2015, authorities were constrained to defined procedures: open, restricted, competitive dialogue, competitive procedure with negotiation, or innovation partnership. The competitive flexible procedure allows authorities to design a process that fits their requirement, provided it meets the Act’s principles of transparency, equal treatment, and proportionality.

For FM procurement, this provision creates a viable alternative to frameworks. A buyer who previously used a framework because open tender was too slow and too constrained by PCR 2015 procedural requirements now has a flexible procedure that can be designed for speed without the rigidity of the old rules. The competitive flexible procedure allows buyers to go off framework without going through the full formality of a PCR 2015 open or restricted procedure.

This is the provision that framework bodies should be most concerned about. If buyers have a faster, more flexible alternative to frameworks, the compliance convenience that made frameworks the default route is no longer unique. The framework must offer something beyond compliance: value, intelligence, supplier management, or contract support. If it offers only compliance, the competitive flexible procedure provides an alternative that does not carry the framework levy.

Off framework leakage

Even before the Procurement Act, some government departments were going off framework because frameworks were too slow, too rigid, or did not include the suppliers they needed. The competitive flexible procedure formalises and legitimises this leakage. Framework bodies that depend on levy revenue from framework utilisation face a commercial threat: if a material proportion of buyers adopt the competitive flexible procedure for FM procurement, framework utilisation falls and levy income declines. The levy economy described in Article 3 is built on utilisation. The competitive flexible procedure reduces the captive nature of that utilisation.

The Central Digital Platform

The Procurement Act requires the creation of a Central Digital Platform (CDP) that will publish procurement data including pipeline notices, tender notices, contract award notices, and contract performance information. The CDP is designed to increase transparency across public sector procurement.

For FM frameworks, the CDP has two significant implications. First, it will publish framework call off data in a way that has not been systematically available before. The concentration patterns described in Article 4, the pricing gaps described in Article 6, and the social value delivery gaps described in Article 7 will become visible through published data rather than requiring FOI requests or proprietary datasets like Baachu Rain. This is good for market transparency but it also means framework bodies will be accountable for outcomes that were previously opaque.

Second, the CDP’s pipeline notices will give suppliers advance visibility of upcoming procurement requirements. This reduces the information advantage that incumbent suppliers and framework insiders currently hold. A regional supplier that can see a pipeline of FM requirements in their area through the CDP can plan their bid strategy more effectively, even if they are not on the framework that will be used to procure those requirements.

How the Act changes framework design itself

Previous articles in this series examined how frameworks operate after they are established: the evaluation, the pricing, the call offs, the concentration. But the structural decisions that shape those outcomes, the lot boundaries, the turnover thresholds, the levy rates, the evaluation weightings, are made during framework design, before any supplier bids. Under PCR 2015, framework design was largely an internal process. CCS or NHS SBS would publish a prior information notice, run supplier engagement events, and then design the framework based on its own assessment of market need. The structural decisions that determined who could compete and on what terms received limited external scrutiny.

The Procurement Act changes this in two ways. First, the commercial pipeline notices required under the Act give the market advance visibility of planned frameworks before they are designed. This creates a window for suppliers, industry bodies, and other stakeholders to engage with the framework design before lot structures and thresholds are set. Second, the CDP will publish the design parameters of new frameworks alongside their outcomes, which means the relationship between design choices (lot size, turnover threshold, evaluation weighting) and results (supplier concentration, regional access, pricing outcomes) will become visible and comparable across framework bodies for the first time.

This is the provision that could address the structural problems identified across this series at their source. If framework design decisions are scrutinised before they take effect, rather than audited after they produce concentration, the cycle can be interrupted. Whether framework bodies use the pipeline notice period for genuine market consultation or for procedural compliance will determine whether the Act reforms framework design or leaves it unchanged.

Exclusion and debarment

The Procurement Act strengthens the exclusion and debarment regime. It creates a centralised debarment list and defines mandatory and discretionary exclusion grounds more precisely than PCR 2015. For FM suppliers, this means that serious compliance failures, including tax evasion, Modern Slavery Act violations, health and safety breaches, and environmental offences, can result in exclusion from all public sector procurement, not just a single framework.

The practical impact on FM frameworks is that supplier due diligence at appointment and during the framework term becomes more important. Framework bodies will need to monitor the debarment list and assess whether appointed suppliers remain eligible. For buyers, the debarment register provides an additional source of information about supplier conduct beyond what the framework appointment evaluation captures.

From MEAT to MAT: what removing one word changes

The Procurement Act replaces the Most Economically Advantageous Tender (MEAT) with the Most Advantageous Tender (MAT). Removing the word ‘economically’ is not cosmetic. It gives contracting authorities explicit legislative permission to prioritise outcomes beyond lowest cost: social value, environmental performance, operational resilience, and sector specific technical capability.

For FM frameworks, this provision connects directly to the problems identified in Articles 5, 6, and 10 of this series. Article 5 showed that framework evaluation rewards writing quality over delivery quality. Article 6 showed that pricing models reward the lowest number, not the most accurate one. Article 10 showed that sector specific capability is often invisible in generic framework evaluations. MAT gives buyers the legislative basis to weight these factors more heavily. Whether they use that basis depends on whether evaluation panels design scoring models that reward outcomes or continue to reward compliance prose and competitive pricing.

Tell Us Once: the supplier efficiency provision

The Procurement Act introduces a supplier registration model through the Central Digital Platform. Suppliers will maintain a single core data profile, sometimes referred to as ‘Tell Us Once’, containing their financial standing, insurance, accreditations, policy documents, and compliance certifications. This profile is shared across all public sector procurements, eliminating the repeated submission of the same information for every framework bid.

For FM suppliers, this reduces the administrative cost of framework participation described in Article 2. A mid market supplier that currently prepares the same financial, insurance, and policy documentation for every framework submission will submit it once and maintain it centrally. This does not eliminate the quality writing and pricing work of framework bids, but it removes the compliance documentation burden that is identical across every submission. For regional and SME suppliers in particular, this provision reduces the entry cost that Article 9 identified as a structural barrier to framework access.

What has actually changed in practice

The Procurement Act came into force in February 2025. As of mid 2026, the practical adoption of its most significant provisions is uneven. Most framework bodies have updated their documentation to reflect the new terminology and procedural requirements. Some have begun designing open framework entry points. Few have fully implemented the transparency obligations that the CDP will require.

The transition period, during which contracts procured under PCR 2015 run alongside contracts procured under the Procurement Act, will last for several years. Framework bodies are managing dual regime compliance. Suppliers are bidding under both sets of rules. Buyers are navigating a period of procedural uncertainty where the old rules and the new rules coexist.

The most honest assessment of the Procurement Act’s impact on FM frameworks in mid 2026 is that the legislation has changed. The market has not yet followed. The open framework concept, the competitive flexible procedure, and the CDP all have the potential to reshape FM procurement. Whether that potential is realised depends on implementation by framework bodies, adoption by buyers, and engagement by suppliers over the next two to three years.

The PFI Reckoning series examined the Procurement Act’s implications for PFI replacement procurement. Article 9 of that series covers the reprocurement timeline, now governed by the Act’s procedural requirements. Article 4 covers how the Act affects the capability authorities need to manage post PFI procurement. The framework provisions examined in this article apply directly to how authorities will procure FM services after PFI expiry.