How to bid for a government contract (UK)

UK public bodies spend over £300 billion a year buying goods, works and services. From 24 February 2025 every pound of that runs through a new framework, the Procurement Act 2023, which replaced the Public Contracts Regulations 2015.

If you're an SME wondering how to win your first government contract, the law has actually moved in your favour. One Central Digital Platform you register on once. Three procedures instead of seven. Social value mandatory at 10% minimum from 1 October 2025. And a 30-day payment rule that protects you when you subcontract.

Here's the version that matters. Skip the corporate procurement-jargon take. This is what to gather, where to look, and what wins.

• Procurement Act 2023 went live 24 February 2025. Three procedures: Open, Competitive Flexible, Direct Award.
• Register once on the Central Digital Platform (built into Find a Tender). Submit Companies House details, last two years of accounts, and exclusion-grounds self-declarations. Reuse on every bid.
• Find a Tender carries every UK public-sector contract over £139,688 (incl. VAT). Contracts Finder carries lower-value English central + local-authority work down to £12,000.
• Mandatory exclusion grounds (Schedule 6): bribery, fraud, tax evasion, modern slavery. Discretionary grounds (Schedule 7): poor performance on prior contracts, insolvency, professional misconduct.
• PPN 002 (Social Value Model, March 2025) becomes mandatory 1 October 2025. 10% minimum on central government. Councils run 15 to 25%.
• 30-day payment is statutory and now extends down the supply chain. UK17 Payments Compliance Notices report buyer performance quarterly.

What's in this guide¶

• What counts as a UK government contract
• What the Procurement Act 2023 actually changed
• Where contracts live (the five free portals)
• The Central Digital Platform, your once-only profile
• Open vs Competitive Flexible vs Direct Award
• Frameworks, Dynamic Markets, single contracts
• The exclusion regime and the central debarment list
• Social value: PPN 002 and what scores
• Pricing, 30-day payment, Project Bank Accounts
• AI disclosure under PPN 017
• First-time bidder paperwork checklist
• What to do when you lose

What counts as a UK government contract¶

"Government contract" is loose talk in everyday English. The Procurement Act covers the lot.

• Central government departments and their agencies. HMRC, DWP, MoJ, Cabinet Office, the lot.
• NHS Trusts, Integrated Care Boards, NHS Property Services.
• County, district, unitary, and parish councils.
• Schools, academies and academy trusts (when they buy direct rather than via the LA).
• Universities, FE colleges, and student unions.
• Police, fire, and rescue.
• Housing associations and registered providers.
• Devolved-government bodies in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland (each runs its own portal but the rules track each other).

Utilities (water, energy, transport, postal) sit under a parallel regime. Defence and security have carve-outs. Everything else lives under the rules in this guide.

What the Procurement Act 2023 actually changed¶

Royal Assent in October 2023. Live on 24 February 2025. The Act replaced PCR 2015, the Concession Contracts Regulations 2016, and the Defence and Security Public Contracts Regulations 2011 with one regime.

Six things matter for an SME.

• Three procedures instead of seven. Less to learn, fewer ways for buyers to confuse the market.
• A Central Digital Platform. One supplier profile, reused on every bid.
• Pipeline notices for any contract over £2 million in the next 18 months. You can see what's coming before it hits tender.
• Contract performance notices on contracts over £5 million. Buyers publish KPI scores annually. Reliable suppliers can prove a track record on the public record.
• A central debarment list, maintained by the Procurement Review Unit. Bad actors get blocked nationally instead of buyer by buyer.
• Statutory 30-day payment that extends down the supply chain. SME subcontractors are protected from main-contractor delays.

Detail sits across the Act's eleven parts plus a string of Procurement Policy Notes. The headline ones in force right now are PPN 002 (Social Value Model, March 2025), PPN 017 (AI use disclosure), and PPN 018 (transition guidance). The full text of the Act is at legislation.gov.uk.

Where UK government contracts live¶

Five free official portals. No paid aggregator carries notices the official portals don't already have, by law. Register on every portal that covers a region you can deliver to.

Find a Tender now carries seventeen new UK notice types (UK1 through UK17) introduced by the Procurement Act. UK1 is a Pipeline Notice for contracts over £2 million in the next 18 months. UK17 is a Payments Compliance Notice. Buyers report quarterly on whether they paid valid invoices within 30 days.

If a paid platform claims to surface notices the official portals don't have, ask which buyer pays them to publish privately. The answer is no buyer.

The Central Digital Platform, your once-only profile¶

The Central Digital Platform (CDP) is the bit of the new regime that saves you the most time. Built into Find a Tender, live since 24 February 2025. Enter your data once, reuse on every bid.

Suppliers create a profile and upload a core dataset.

• Companies House registration, registered name, trading name, registered address.
• Connected persons: directors, parent companies, beneficial owners with significant control.
• Last two years of accounts.
• Self-declarations against mandatory and discretionary exclusion grounds (Schedules 6 and 7).
• Insurance certificates (public liability, employer's liability, professional indemnity).
• SSIP accreditation: CHAS, SafeContractor, SMAS, or Constructionline.
• Quality, environmental, and H&S management certs (ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001).
• per-sector accreditations (BICSc for cleaning, SIA ACS for security, BALI for grounds).

When you bid, the buyer pulls this from your CDP profile automatically. You don't re-key it. The bid response then focuses on the per-contract narrative. Method statement, relevant experience, social value, pricing.

Open vs Competitive Flexible vs Direct Award¶

Section 20 of the Act sets out three procedures. The buyer picks one and explains the choice in the tender notice.

Open Procedure

One stage. Any interested supplier submits a tender. Most council cleaning, security and grounds contracts run Open. Used when the buyer wants the price and quality answered in one shot, not negotiated.

Competitive Flexible Procedure

Bespoke. The buyer designs a multi-stage process to match the requirement. Replaces PCR 2015's Restricted, Competitive Dialogue, Competitive with Negotiation, and Innovation Partnership procedures all in one. Common features: shortlisting, market engagement events, site visits, negotiations, phased reductions of bidders. Used for complex, high-value, or innovative work.

Direct Award

No competition. Allowed only in narrow circumstances under sections 41 to 43: extreme urgency, protection of life, or where one supplier alone can credibly deliver. The buyer publishes a Transparency Notice before making the award so other suppliers can challenge if the conditions don't actually apply.

Frameworks, Dynamic Markets, single contracts¶

Three contract structures you'll meet in practice.

• Single contracts. One buyer, one tender, one supplier. Procurement Act procedures apply.
• Frameworks (s.45-48). A pre-approved supplier list buyers call off from for up to four years on most goods/services. Suppliers compete to get on, then compete (or are direct-awarded) on individual call-offs.
• Dynamic Markets (s.34-40). The successor to Dynamic Purchasing Systems. Always-open: suppliers join at any point. The market sets qualification once, buyers run mini-competitions among qualified suppliers.

For an SME, frameworks and Dynamic Markets are the better entry point than single high-value tenders. Lower qualification bar per call-off, smaller volumes, the relationship is in place before the work starts. Win one call-off, build a reference, win the next.

The exclusion regime and the debarment list¶

Schedules 6 and 7 set out when a buyer must, or may, exclude a supplier. The grounds replace and unify the equivalent regimes from PCR 2015, the Concessions Regulations, and the Defence and Security Regulations.

Mandatory grounds (Schedule 6)

Authorities must exclude. Examples: serious criminal convictions for bribery, fraud, money laundering, tax evasion, terrorism or organised crime, modern slavery, labour-market enforcement breaches. Convictions of associated persons (directors, beneficial owners) trigger the same exclusion.

Discretionary grounds (Schedule 7)

Authorities may exclude. Professional misconduct. Insolvency. Environmental misconduct. Breach of contract on a previous public contract that resulted in damages or termination. KPI failure. Buyers weigh these case by case.

The central debarment list

Sections 59 to 66. Maintained by the Procurement Review Unit (PRU) on behalf of a Minister of the Crown. Following an investigation, a Minister may add a supplier where an exclusion ground applies and the circumstances are continuing or likely to recur. Suppliers can appeal. Self-cleaning evidence (management changes, training, contract-monitoring fixes) is the route back.

Events more than five years old generally can't be the basis of an exclusion. Entries stay on the list until the underlying issue is resolved or the supplier successfully applies for removal.

Self-cleaning evidence is the route back. A supplier excluded for past KPI failure can return by documenting the management changes, training programmes, and contract-monitoring fixes that addressed the weakness.

Procurement Review Unit

Social value: PPN 002 and what actually scores¶

Social value is no longer a tick-box. PPN 002 (the Social Value Model, updated March 2025) becomes mandatory across central government on 1 October 2025. Councils and the NHS run their own variants of the same model, often weighted higher.

• Central government: minimum 10% weighting on social value, scored under PPN 002.
• Local authorities: National TOMs framework (Themes, Outcomes, Measures). 15-25% weightings normal. Some councils run 30%+.
• NHS: NHS Social Value Model with Model Award Criteria mapped to TOMs. Starts at 10%, often higher on Trust frameworks.
• Carbon Reduction Plans (PPN 06/21): required on contracts over £5 million per year.

What actually scores is SMART commitments. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound. Evaluation panels are tired of vague "local hiring" promises and reject them on scoring.

Commitments that score well for SMEs

• Local employment: recruit X full-time-equivalent residents from the contract postcode area within Y months. Apprenticeships for 16-24-year-old NEETs. Targeted hiring of care leavers, prison leavers, long-term unemployed.
• Environment: a number-with-units reduction in MTCDE annually. Switch to ecolabel-certified products. Electric or hybrid fleet within Z months. Diverting a defined tonnage of waste from landfill.
• Community: pro-bono volunteering hours for named local VCSEs (Voluntary, Community, Social Enterprises). Career talks at named local schools. A defined percentage of contract spend committed to local SMEs and VCSEs.

The National TOMs framework assigns financial proxy values to each commitment so buyers can compare bids on a like-for-like basis. Proxy values update annually in January or February. Use the current year's table when costing your social value commitments.

Pricing, 30-day payment, Project Bank Accounts¶

Two SME-friendly rules from the Act change cash flow on public contracts.

• Statutory 30-day payment. Public buyers must pay valid, undisputed invoices within 30 days. The duty extends down the supply chain. Main contractors must pay subcontractors on the same 30-day basis. Buyers publish quarterly performance via UK17 Payments Compliance Notices.
• Project Bank Accounts. Used on construction and major works to ring-fence supply-chain payments and protect SME subcontractors from main-contractor insolvency. Less common in routine soft FM but worth knowing if you ever subcontract on larger frameworks.

On pricing, the public sector now runs mostly on Most Economically Advantageous Tender. A weighted score across price, quality, social value, sometimes innovation. Pure lowest-price awards are rarer than they were under PCR 2015 and aren't the default.

AI disclosure under PPN 017¶

If you use an AI tool to draft any part of a tender response, PPN 017 (the successor to PPN 02/24) tells you to disclose it. The disclosure is short. Which tool. Which part of the response it produced. The human review you applied.

Buyers don't ban AI. They want transparency so they can evaluate the response on its own merits. Declare honestly, edit for accuracy, and never let a tool claim a certification or a track record you don't actually hold. Misrepresentation in a bid is a discretionary exclusion ground. It can land you on the central debarment list.

First-time bidder paperwork checklist¶

Build the pack once, save it in one place, update each cert when it renews. The first SQ takes a weekend. The fifth takes an hour.

1. Companies House registration. Last two years of audited or certified accounts.
2. Public liability insurance. £5 million is the cleaning floor. £10 million for security and larger council estates.
3. Employer's liability insurance. £5 million statutory minimum. £10 million the public-sector norm.
4. Professional indemnity if the contract involves advice or design.
5. One SSIP accreditation: CHAS Standard, SMAS Worksafe, SafeContractor, Constructionline. The Deem-to-Satisfy rule passports you between schemes if a buyer asks for a different one.
6. ISO 9001 (Quality). Nice to have for council work under £100k. Increasingly mandatory above.
7. ISO 14001 (Environmental). Strongly preferred when the bid carries a sustainability weighting.
8. ISO 45001 (Occupational H&S). Replaces OHSAS 18001.
9. per-sector accreditations. BICSc for cleaning. SIA ACS for security. BALI or RHS for grounds.
10. Modern Slavery Act, Equal Opportunities, Health and Safety, and Environmental policies. One page each is fine for sub-£100k work.
11. DBS policy for any contract involving schools, healthcare, or vulnerable users.
12. Two or three reference contacts. Named, contactable, on similar previous contracts.

On the SSIP shopping decision, our best SSIP scheme for small business UK comparison covers the four big schemes. For tender-discovery options that don't cost anything, best free tender sites in the UK walks through the official portals plus what's worth registering on. And if you're wondering how to actually write the bid once you've found one, bid writer vs AI bid tool has the maths.

What to do when you lose¶

The first three bids will probably lose. That's normal. Treat them as paid training.

If you lose, you have a statutory right to feedback under section 50 of the Act. The buyer publishes an Assessment Summary in the Contract Award Notice. It explains the winning bid's relative advantages, usually a comparative scoring breakdown across each award criterion. You can request a more detailed debrief within ten days of the standstill notice.

Use the feedback structurally. If your social value answer scored 2 out of 5 and the winner scored 4, the gap is real money. The £20,000 of contract value the SMART-commitments framework would have captured. Apply the lesson to the next bid in the same buyer's pipeline.

What good looks like¶

1. Read the contract pack in full. The award criteria, the weightings, and the KPIs are usually buried. They're what you're scored against.
2. Match every claim to evidence. Tick ISO 9001, attach the certificate. Commit to local hiring, name the postcode area and the headcount.
3. Use the buyer's vocabulary. If the spec says "colour-coded equipment to BICSc standard" and you write "colour-coded mops", you've changed the criterion they're scoring against. Quote the spec wording back.
4. Don't pad. Word counts on public bids are caps, not targets. A focused 480-word answer beats a 750-word answer that loops on itself.
5. Submit 24 hours before the deadline. Portals slow or break in the final hour. Late submissions are excluded.

Treat the first three bids as paid training. Submit on time. Ask for the feedback you're entitled to. Apply the lessons to bid four.

Hard-won lesson

If you want a faster route from notice to qualified shortlist, register on CleanTender and run a free fit check on the next live tender that catches your eye.