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Competitive tendering under the Procurement Act 2023: what the guidance covers and who it binds

Source last checked: 1 September 2026. Taken from the Cabinet Office guidance document, not from the text of the Procurement Act 2023.

What this guidance is, and what it is not

It is Cabinet Office guidance on how a competitive tender is run under the Procurement Act 2023 — not the Act. Everything on this page comes from that guidance document, and where a section number appears below it appears because the guidance names it.

The guidance sets out which provisions govern a competitive tendering procedure: sections 19 to 21 of the Act, covering the award of public contracts following a competitive tendering procedure, the procedures themselves, and tender notices with their associated tender documents; regulations 18 to 22, which carry the tender notice requirements for the open procedure, the competitive flexible procedure, frameworks and dynamic markets; and regulation 23, on associated tender documents (guidance, page 2).

The practical consequence for a bidder: this document tells you what a buyer is allowed to do to you during a competition, and what it must publish before it does. It does not tell you whether you are eligible, and it does not tell you how your tender will be scored.

The procedures a competitive tender can take

Either an open procedure or a competitive flexible procedure. Both start when a tender notice is published, and the guidance treats them as the only competitive routes under the Act (page 2).

a. the first is an open procedure, which is a single stage procedure whereby any interested party can submit a tender and the authority will decide whom to award the contract to on the basis of that tender; b. the second is a competitive flexible procedure, which is any other competitive tendering procedure the contracting authority considers appropriate for the purpose of awarding the public contract.

Guidance on Competitive Tendering Procedures, page 3

Read the second limb again: any other competitive tendering procedure the authority considers appropriate. The competitive flexible procedure is not a procedure with a fixed shape. It is a licence for the buyer to design one, within the constraints the Act imposes on time limits, transparency and the procurement objectives in section 12 (page 3).

That design freedom is bounded by proportionality. The guidance states that the procedure as designed must be a proportionate means of awarding the contract, having regard to the nature, complexity and cost of the contract, and warns that unnecessarily complex or time-consuming procedures can deter small and medium-sized enterprises from participating at all (page 4).

When no competitive tendering procedure is required

In limited circumstances only. The guidance names them: where direct award is justified under sections 41 or 43, and where a contract is awarded under a framework — a call-off contract under section 45 — though it adds that call-off contracts do generally require competition under section 45(3) (page 2).

Everything else, including the special regime contracts defined in section 10 — concession contracts, defence and security contracts, light touch contracts and utilities contracts — is procured using one of the competitive procedures, with separate guidance covering the special regimes (page 2).

Frameworks themselves can be established under either procedure. Call-off contracts awarded under a framework are awarded in accordance with the framework's terms and, the guidance states, are not subject to the competitive tendering provisions in section 20 (page 4). If you are chasing a call-off, the rules on this page largely stop applying to you and the framework's own rules take over.

When the open procedure is not available

Where the buyer wants to narrow the field, or is buying through a dynamic market, or is reserving the contract. The guidance names the circumstances in which only the competitive flexible procedure can be used: where the authority wishes to limit the number of suppliers before inviting tenders under section 20(4)(a), where it is procuring under a dynamic market under section 34, and where it is reserving a public contract to supported employment providers or public service mutuals under sections 32 and 33 (page 3).

This is the most useful inference on the page for a bidder reading a live notice. A tender notice announcing a shortlisting stage cannot be an open procedure, because shortlisting before tenders is exactly what the open procedure cannot do. The notice should say so, and the criteria for the shortlist must be in it.

The tender notice is what starts the clock

And an incomplete notice does not start it. A competitive tendering procedure commences with publication of a tender notice on the central digital platform, which either provides the associated tender documents or explains how they will be provided (page 5).

The guidance is blunt about what follows if the information is not there. Unless the tender notice or the associated tender documents provide all the information suppliers need to prepare their tenders — in particular details of the goods, services or works required — the authority cannot set a deadline for submission and the tendering period in section 54 cannot commence (page 6). Where the authority relies on associated tender documents to meet that requirement, those documents have to be provided at the same time as the notice (page 10).

In an open procedure the tender notice is itself the invitation to tender, so any associated documents have to reach the central digital platform at the outset, either attached to the notice or by a direct link to the page where they sit (page 8). In a competitive flexible procedure the notice can be used in another way: to invite requests to participate rather than tenders (page 10).

The guidance also lists what the regulations require the notice to contain, among it: a description of any conditions of participation to be met, the award criteria or a summary of them, whether an electronic auction is intended, how and by when tenders or requests to participate may be submitted, and — where an authority thinks it may later rely on the materialisation of a known risk under paragraph 5 of Schedule 8 to modify the contract — the known risks (page 17). For a competitive flexible procedure the notice must also describe the process to be followed, including whether negotiation may happen at any stage and whether the award criteria will be refined during the procedure (page 18).

Narrowing the field in a competitive flexible procedure

The Act sets no minimum number of suppliers, but the guidance suggests figures. Where the number of suppliers is to be limited, the guidance calls the stage that does it the participation stage, reached when suppliers respond to the tender notice with a request to participate (page 9).

However, it is suggested that, provided sufficient suppliers have expressed an interest to participate, the contracting authority should invite at least five suppliers to progress where the procedure is straightforward with no dialogue or negotiation. Where the procedure is more complex and will include extensive dialogue or negotiation, it is suggested that at least three suppliers are invited to progress.

Guidance on Competitive Tendering Procedures, page 13

Note the verb: suggested. The guidance states plainly that the Act does not set out a minimum number, because what is needed for genuine competition varies with the nature and complexity of the contract, the number of suppliers likely to be interested, and the length and complexity of the procedure (page 13). A shortlist shorter than the suggested figures is not automatically unlawful. If fewer suppliers than the intended minimum remain at a stage, the authority may proceed with those that do (page 12).

Two points here matter to a smaller supplier. The guidance acknowledges that reducing the number of participants can act as a barrier to start-ups and new entrants who have a suitable solution but lack a track record, and says an authority must have regard to the particular barriers SMEs face and consider whether they can be removed or reduced (page 12). And a supplier that cannot meet a condition of participation on initial assessment but can show it will meet it before award may be allowed to progress on that basis — a discretion the authority holds, not a right the supplier has (page 12).

Conditions of participation are not award criteria. The guidance keeps them apart: conditions of participation assess whether a supplier can perform the contract — its legal and financial capacity, or its technical ability — and must be a proportionate means of establishing that, while award criteria determine which tender is the most advantageous (page 6). A tender from a supplier that does not satisfy the conditions of participation must be disregarded (page 7).

What changed from the 2015 and 2016 regulations

The named procedures went; the open procedure stayed. The guidance describes the Act as including an open procedure similar to the one in the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 and the Utilities Contracts Regulations 2016, and as introducing the competitive flexible procedure in place of the more prescriptive procedures that preceded it (page 3).

The practical difference between the regimes is worth stating as a contrast, because it changes how a bidder reads a notice:

So the reading task has moved. Under the old regime you could recognise the procedure from its name and infer the rest. Under the Act the name tells you almost nothing, and the notice has to be read for the design.

The design can include a good deal. The guidance lists possibilities for complex requirements: post-tender negotiations after a round of open tendering, post-tender negotiations after selective tendering, multi-staged negotiations after an initial round, or a stage built around physical inspection or demonstration such as a site visit or a pilot (page 5). It also describes a preferred supplier stage, involving only the supplier that submitted the most advantageous tender, which may clarify or confirm commitments or involve limited post-tender negotiation — but which must not have the effect of altering the award outcome (pages 15 and 16).

Who the guidance binds, and what it excludes

It binds contracting authorities awarding public contracts under section 19. It is written at the buyer throughout, and the obligations it describes — publish the notice, provide sufficient information, check exclusions, disregard non-compliant tenders, issue assessment summaries — fall on the authority, not on you.

What sits outside it, on the guidance's own terms:

• Call-off contracts under a framework. Awarded in accordance with the framework's terms and not subject to the competitive tendering provisions in section 20 (page 4).
• Contracts directly awarded under sections 41 or 43. No competitive tendering procedure is required (page 2).
• The detail of the special regimes. Concession, defence and security, light touch and utilities contracts do use a competitive procedure, but the guidance points to separate guidance for them (page 2).
• Private utilities, for one notice at least. Private utilities are not required to publish a procurement termination notice (page 18).

That last distinction is the kind that quietly misleads. The procedural rules on this page are not uniform across every buyer and every contract type, and a page that named only the authorities bound would give you the wrong rule for a utilities or framework-based award.

What this guidance does not cover

Several things a bidder often expects to find here sit elsewhere, and the guidance says so itself.

It does not decide how your tender is scored. The definition of the most advantageous tender — the one that satisfies the requirements and best satisfies the award criteria, assessed by reference to the assessment methodology and, where there is more than one criterion, their relative importance — is given here, but the guidance refers the detail of assessing competitive tenders elsewhere (page 6).

It does not decide whether you are excluded. It states that an authority must consider whether a supplier is an excluded or excludable supplier before assessing which tender best satisfies the award criteria, and that in a competitive flexible procedure section 27 requires the check before a supplier is permitted to participate at all — then points to the guidance on exclusions (page 11).

It does not set the tendering period. It notes that section 54(1) requires the authority to have regard to factors such as the nature and complexity of the contract when setting the date by which tenders must be submitted (page 5), and that shorter minimum tendering periods in the section 54 table can apply, for instance where a qualifying planned procurement notice was published (page 16) — but the periods themselves live in the Act.

And it does not give you the current wording of the Act. This page deliberately quotes no statutory text. Where it names a section, it names it as the guidance names it, and the guidance itself dates from 2024 (page 20).

After the award: what the authority has to release

Assessment summaries first, then the contract award notice. The guidance states that once the most advantageous tender has been identified the authority must release both, in that order: assessment summaries to suppliers, then publication of a contract award notice on the central digital platform (page 7). It must not enter into the contract before both have happened (page 7).

Every supplier that submitted an assessed tender gets an assessment summary, which exists so the supplier can understand why its tender succeeded or failed (page 7). Publication of the contract award notice is what starts the standstill period, and the guidance states the mandatory standstill is a minimum of eight working days, applying to all public contracts apart from those listed in section 51(3) (page 8).

If you fell out earlier than the final assessment, you are owed less. The guidance advises authorities to notify suppliers promptly when they will not progress, to explain the decision, and to use the assessment summary structure for intermediate rounds as well — advice rather than entitlement, and worth knowing as such before you ask for feedback (page 13).

Common questions

Does this guidance apply to the contract I am bidding for?

If it is a public contract being competed under the Procurement Act 2023, yes. If it is a call-off under an existing framework, largely not: the framework's terms govern the award and the guidance states that call-off contracts are not subject to the competitive tendering provisions in section 20. If it is a concession, defence and security, light touch or utilities contract, a competitive procedure still applies but separate guidance covers the regime.

Can a UK authority still run a restricted procedure?

Not by that name. The guidance states there is no longer a restricted procedure, competitive procedure with negotiation or competitive dialogue procedure, but that a similar approach can be adopted as part of a competitive flexible procedure where that is appropriate and complies with the Act. In practice a two-stage shortlist-then-tender design is one of the examples the guidance itself describes.

How many suppliers will be shortlisted?

The Act sets no minimum. The guidance suggests that, where enough suppliers have expressed interest, an authority should invite at least five to progress in a straightforward procedure, and at least three where the procedure includes extensive dialogue or negotiation. Those are suggestions, not thresholds, and the authority must set out in the tender notice the objective criteria it will use if it caps the number.

Can the authority negotiate with us after tenders are in?

Only if the tender notice said it might. The guidance requires the authority to set out in the tender notice how the competitive flexible procedure is to be carried out, and states that if the procedure is to include negotiation, that must be stated. For negotiation of specific elements after a participation stage, the notice must set out the intention to negotiate and which elements are open for it, such as price and delivery timings.

What happens if the tender documents are incomplete when the notice goes out?

The clock does not start. The guidance states that unless the tender notice or the associated tender documents provide all the information suppliers need to prepare tenders, the authority cannot set a submission deadline and the tendering period in section 54 cannot commence. Where the authority is relying on associated tender documents to meet that requirement, they must be provided at the same time as the notice.

Can an authority award to more than one supplier from the same competition?

Yes, if the competition was set up for it. The guidance states that separate contracts can be awarded to multiple suppliers following a competitive tendering procedure — establishing a framework is its example — where the award criteria and assessment methodology in the tender notice and associated tender documents provide that more than one tender can satisfy the requirements and best satisfy the criteria, and on what basis.

Do we have to be told why we lost?

If you submitted an assessed tender, yes: the authority must provide an assessment summary to every supplier that did, and may not enter into the contract before the summaries are issued and the contract award notice is published. If you were dropped earlier, the guidance advises prompt notification with an explanation, but frames that as advice to authorities rather than an entitlement.

Related guides

• How long do you actually get to bid on a public tender?
• When can a US agency use simplified acquisition instead of full competition?
• FAR Part 19 (Small Business Programs): what it covers and who it binds

Source: Guidance on Competitive Tendering Procedures (Procurement Act 2023), Cabinet Office, © Crown copyright 2024, published under the Open Government Licence v3.0, assets.publishing.service.gov.uk. Corpus last fetched 1 September 2026; page references are to that PDF. Every claim on this page is drawn from that guidance document and not from the Act: where a section of the Act is named, it is named as the guidance names it, and no statutory text is quoted. The copy of the Procurement Act 2023 held in our corpus is the as-enacted version, so this page makes no claim about the current wording of the Act. Guidance states the Cabinet Office's view of the legislation; this page does not give legal advice.

Written by Robert Grabarević, founder of Scalebiz. He built the radar as a tool for himself, so that he would not have to re-read the same funding rules for every application. Every guide on this site cites the regulation by section or page, so each claim can be checked against the source. About Scalebiz · Robert on LinkedIn.