The UK Procurement Act 2023 is here, and it's a game-changer for public procurement in the UK. Effective February 24. 2025, this law introduces new rules designed to increase transparency, efficiency, and fairness in awarding public contracts.
The UK Procurement Act 2023: Managing transparency and redaction requirements
Handling public contracts in the UK? This major overhaul changes the rules from February 2025, and existing frameworks have until February 2029 to transition.
- Value beyond just price: MAT (Most Advantageous Tender) replaces MEAT criteria, requiring evaluators to weigh quality, social value, and environmental impact alongside cost.
- £5M+ contracts face full disclosure: Contracts exceeding £5 million must be published with only justified redactions permitted, plus annual performance reviews through mandatory KPIs.
- SMEs get fairer opportunities: Simplified processes and a central digital platform make it easier for smaller businesses to compete for public contracts.
- Supplier accountability tightens: A public debarment list exposes problematic suppliers, while 30-day payment terms become mandatory for undisputed invoices.
- Redaction requires justification: Protecting sensitive data demands proper documentation - only commercial confidentiality or national security concerns qualify.
The organizations already updating their processes and training their teams will navigate these changes smoothly while others face compliance scrambles. Start preparing now.
Understanding the UK Procurement Act 2023
Core objectives
The UK Procurement Act 2023 represents one of the most sweeping updates to procurement laws in recent history. Its primary goal is to bring public procurement into the modern age, improving both transparency and efficiency in how government funds - totaling around $480 billion (£385 billion) annually - are spent.
This legislation merges four previously separate laws into a single, streamlined framework:
- Public Contracts Regulations 2015
- Utilities Contracts Regulations 2016
- Defense and Security Public Contracts Regulations 2011
- Concession Contracts Regulations 2016
Scope and application
The Act applies to England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. While Scotland operates under its own procurement laws, certain authorities handling reserved functions must comply with the provisions of this Act.
Here are the threshold values for contracts under the Act, effective from January 1, 2024, through December 31, 2025:
The Act's scope extends across various sectors, including defense. Notably, the Ministry of Defence is expected to allocate around $360.75 billion (£288.6 billion) over the next decade for equipment and support services.
Implementation timeline
February 24, 2025 marks day one of the new regime. Any procurement you launch after this date falls under the Act's rules - no exceptions. Projects already underway before the deadline continue under the old framework until they finish.
Legacy systems get a longer runway: your dynamic purchasing systems and qualification systems have until February 23, 2029 to transition. That's four years to adapt, but smart organizations aren't waiting.
Treating this as "just another regulatory update" is the easiest way to fail. This isn't a minor adjustment - it's a fundamental rewiring of how £385 billion flows through government contracts annually. Organizations succeeding in this transition are building cross-functional teams, auditing their contract management capabilities, and running practice scenarios against the new requirements.
The calendar may suggest you have time. The complexity suggests otherwise.
Major changes in the Procurement Act
New procurement procedures
The Act dramatically simplifies procedural options while enhancing flexibility. Gone is the confusing array of procurement routes - in their place:
- An open procedure for straightforward procurements - single-stage and accessible
- A competitive flexible procedure that lets authorities design bespoke processes for complex projects
This flexibility extends to amending tender processes mid-procurement. Authorities can now adjust award criteria during live tenders (with appropriate transparency), a significant departure from the previous rigid framework that forced projects into predetermined paths regardless of evolving needs.
New tender svaluation method
"Most Economically Advantageous" becomes simply "Most Advantageous." This subtle shift speaks volumes.
While MEAT always permitted consideration of non-economic factors, MAT makes these criteria explicit and central. The new framework doesn't just allow evaluators to consider broader value - it requires it. Authorities must now actively weigh:
- Service quality - How well you'll actually deliver
- Social value - What your community gets beyond the contract
- Environmental impact - Your carbon footprint matters now
- Local economic benefits - Where the money flows after you're paid
- Innovation - Solutions that break from business-as-usual
Procurement teams focusing primarily on price will find themselves outscored by competitors demonstrating broader value. The winners understand this isn't about relegating cost - it's about elevating everything else.
Transparency rules
The Act doesn't just change how contracts are awarded - it exposes the entire process to public scrutiny. A new digital platform merges Find a Tender (FTS) with the Supplier Information System, creating a searchable database where:
- Your £5M+ contracts become public reading - Every detail of deals exceeding £5 million gets published for competitors and watchdogs alike
- Award decisions face tight deadlines - 30 days to publish standard contract awards, 120 days for light-touch contracts
- Your performance gets scored publicly - Annual KPI assessments show whether you're delivering on promises
- Contract changes require advance notice - No more quiet modifications; Contract Change Notices broadcast your adjustments before they happen
This transparency revolution benefits prepared bidders but terrifies those used to operating behind closed doors.
Contract modification controls
The Act introduces strict controls on how contracts can be changed after award:
- Contract Change Notices (CCNs) must be published before implementing certain modifications
- Modified contracts over £5M must be published in full (with appropriate redactions)
- New modification grounds include extreme urgency and materialization of known risks
- "Convertible contracts" that start below threshold but exceed it after modification now explicitly fall under the Act's requirements
These provisions close previous loopholes that allowed substantial contract changes to escape public scrutiny.
Supplier management updates
The Act significantly expands authorities' powers to exclude problematic suppliers:
- Expanded exclusion grounds: New mandatory and discretionary grounds include corporate manslaughter, fraud offenses, environmental violations, labor misconduct, and poor past performance
- Public Debarment List: A centralized database tracks suppliers excluded from all public contracts - not just individual tenders as in the previous regime
- 30-day payment terms: Mandatory 30-day payment for undisputed invoices supports supplier cash flow and financial stability
These changes fundamentally restructure the relationship between government buyers and their suppliers, emphasizing accountability throughout the contract lifecycle.
New threshold amounts
For contracts exceeding £5 million ($6.25 million), the Act mandates the publication of contract details and annual KPI reviews. These measures aim to enhance accountability and ensure proper oversight of significant public procurement activities.
Redaction requirements
The Act's focus on transparency and accountability comes with clear guidelines for redaction, ensuring sensitive details are protected while meeting public disclosure requirements.
Contract publication rules
Under the UK Procurement Act 2023, contracts that go over the threshold must be published. However, Section 94 allows to redact or exclude specific information in cases such as:
- National security concerns: Details that could jeopardize national security.
- Commercial sensitivity: Information that might harm legitimate business interests if made public.
These rules aim to balance openness with safeguarding critical information, forming a foundation for effective risk management.
Protecting your data and competitive edge when contracts go public
With thousands of £5M+ contracts soon to be published online for competitors and watchdogs to examine, sensitive information protection becomes critical. The Act doesn't just change procurement rules - it creates a public showcase of your pricing strategies, technical approaches, and operational details unless properly redacted. Organizations focusing only on winning contracts, without planning how to protect their proprietary information during publication, risk exposing trade secrets that took years to develop. How do you balance mandated transparency with protecting your competitive advantage, and keeping your sensitive data private?
What can (and cannot) be redacted for privacy
The Act's transparency mandate comes with specific boundaries for redaction. Under Section 94, only two categories of information qualify for legitimate redaction:
- National security information: Data that could genuinely compromise security operations or vulnerable infrastructure
- Commercial sensitivity: Trade secrets or proprietary information that would damage legitimate business interests if revealed
Everything else must be published. General pricing models, standard terms, and basic service descriptions rarely qualify for redaction protection. Authorities are increasingly rejecting vague confidentiality claims that previously went unchallenged.
Redaction best practices that stand up to scrutiny
Organizations succeeding under the new transparency requirements follow these essential practices:
- Start with clear criteria: Develop a tiered classification system that maps directly to the Act's permitted exemptions. Vague standards guarantee inconsistent redactions.
- Document every decision: Each redaction needs its own justification record. When authorities question your redactions (and they might), these records become your defense.
- Implement a review process: No single person should make all redaction choices. Teams applying consistent standards catch oversights that trigger compliance failures.
- Revisit long-term redactions: Information classified as sensitive today may not qualify for protection next year. Schedule regular reviews of ongoing contracts.
Why PDF editors fail the compliance test
Standard PDF tools create significant risks when handling procurement documents:
- Incomplete data removal: Drawing boxes over text doesn't actually remove the information. The data remains in the file, easily extracted by anyone with basic technical skills.
- Metadata exposure: PDF editors typically leave document metadata intact, exposing author names, creation dates, and even revision histories containing sensitive information.
- No audit trail: Manual redaction processes rarely generate the documentation records required to justify decisions when challenged.
Professional redaction software provides permanent removal of sensitive information, comprehensive metadata scrubbing, and detailed audit trails that satisfy the Act's rigorous requirements. When regulators and watchdog groups inevitably scrutinize your published contracts, the difference between proper and improper redaction tools becomes the difference between compliance and penalties.
Read also: Meta redaction failure exposes tech’s trust crisis
Conclusion: preparing for the new procurement landscape
February 2025 looms large on the horizon. When the Procurement Act takes effect, it will consolidate 350+ regulations governing £300 billion in annual spending into a single framework that rewards quality, punishes secrecy, and exposes poor performers.
The winners in this new landscape aren't just the organizations with the best offerings - they're the ones with the best preparation. While competitors scramble to understand new requirements after the deadline passes, forward-thinking teams are already:
- Rethinking proposal strategies to demonstrate value across all MAT criteria, not just price
- Building robust redaction protocols that protect truly sensitive information while embracing transparency
- Implementing proper redaction tools that permanently remove data and document every decision
- Training staff to navigate the central digital platform before it becomes mandatory
- Developing KPI tracking systems that prevent performance surprises during mandatory annual reviews
As Ministers Jeremy Quin and Alex Burghart noted, the Act also addresses security concerns, recognizing that "dangerous actors infiltrate states by giving their operations the camouflage of a company."
The sheer volume of contracts requiring publication means legal teams must dramatically improve their redaction capabilities. Manual processes and basic PDF tools simply won't scale to meet the demand for reliable, defensible redactions across hundreds of documents.
Redactable's AI-powered automated redaction platform helps organizations stay compliant with these new regulations by permanently removing sensitive information, documenting all redaction decisions, and streamlining document preparation before publication. Try Redactable free to see how it can transform your team's readiness for the Act's transparency requirements.
