Procurement Act 2023 guidance: contract award notices and standstill

1. A contract award notice informs interested parties that the contracting authority intends to enter into a public contract with a specified supplier (or, where relevant, multiple suppliers).

2. The standstill period is the period between the contracting authority announcing its intention to enter into a contract (by publishing the contract award notice) and actually entering into that contract. The contracting authority cannot enter into the contract during the standstill period. The standstill period provides an opportunity for suppliers to raise any concerns about, or formally challenge, the award decision before the contract is entered into. It must be at least 8 working days beginning with the day on which the contract award notice is published.

3. Section 50 (Contract award notices and assessment summaries) of the Procurement Act 2023 (the Act) sets out the requirement for contracting authorities to publish a contract award notice before entering into a public contract (and the exemptions to this requirement). Regulations 28-31 of the Procurement (Wales) Regulations 2024 (the Regulations) set out what needs to be included in this notice:

1. Regulation 28: Contract award notices except those published by private utilities
2. Regulation 29: Contract award notices published by private utilities
3. Regulation 30: Contract award notices published by private utilities: direct awards
4. Regulation 31: Contract award notices published by private utilities: frameworks

4. Section 51 (Standstill periods on the award of contracts) provides that the ‘mandatory standstill period’ is the period of 8 working days beginning with the day the contract award notice is published. It also sets out the exemptions to this requirement and makes provision for a voluntary standstill period where these exemptions apply.

5. Contract award notices under the Act are different from contract award notices under the previous legislation which were used to inform interested parties that the contract had been entered into and to provide certain information about that contract. Under the Act, this function is broadly replicated by the contract details notice (see guidance on contract details notice for more information).

6. Under the Act, the publication of the contract award notice takes place before the contract has been entered into and starts the standstill period where applicable. This position is different from the previous legislation where the standstill period was triggered by issuing notices of a decision to award a contract (commonly referred to as ‘standstill letters’) to suppliers. The function of the standstill letter in providing information about assessed tenders is now provided by the assessment summary (see guidance on assessment summaries). The requirement to publish a notice informing suppliers and other interested parties that the contracting authority intends to enter into a contract is a new obligation.

7. The standstill period is now a minimum of 8 working days (rather than 10 calendar days) and applies to all public contracts apart from those listed in section 51(3). This eight working day period will usually result in a standstill period commensurate with that under the previous legislation but avoids the standstill period being artificially shortened by bank holidays.

Contract award notices

8. Before entering into a public contract, a devolved Welsh authority (DWA) must publish a contract award notice on the central digital platform. This requirement is met by submitting the notice to the Welsh digital platform (Sell2Wales) and receiving confirmation that it has been successfully published, or it is accessible by all on the central digital platform (see guidance on the Welsh Digital Platform - Sell2Wales). This notice provides advanced information to suppliers and other interested parties that the contracting authority intends to enter into a contract and provides certain information about the contract. Generally, the contract award notice will initiate a standstill period of at least 8 working days, but there are exceptions. Further information on standstill is provided at paragraphs 47-49 below.

9. Section 50(6) of the Act provides that the requirement to publish a contract award notice does not apply to:

1. defence and security contract awarded under a defence and security framework, or
2. a contract awarded under section 41 by reference to Schedule 5 (Direct award justifications), paragraph 15 (Direct award: user choice contracts). (The requirement to publish a contract award notice does not apply to below-threshold contracts as the requirement to publish a contract award notice only applies to public contracts).

10. Regulations 28 to 31 set out the information to be included in contract award notices. Much of this information will replicate and update what was published in the tender notice or transparency notice (as relevant), including the value and scope of the contract. Significant additional information requirements are explained below.

11. For private utilities, the information (set out in regulations 29-31) is slightly different from that for contract award notices published by other contracting authorities. This is because the notice for private utilities contains information that would usually be set out in the contract details notice, which private utilities are not required to publish. The differences for private utilities are set out at paragraphs 42-46 below.

12. For each supplier awarded the contract, information is required to be published about the supplier’s:

1. associated persons, as defined in section 26(4) of the Act, and
2. connected persons as defined in Schedule 6, paragraph 45 of the Act.

13. Regulation 12 of the Regulations sets out the supplier’s connected person information to be included in the contract award notice. For certain connected persons who are individuals, connected person information which is ‘secured information’ as defined in regulation 28(5) is not required to be published.

14. Where secured information is not required to be published, contracting authorities should instead indicate that there is a connected person who meets the description in regulation 12(3)(b) or (c), or the description in regulation 12(15)(b) of the Regulations, but not provide any details. The information should be correct as at the time the notice is published. Whilst not a requirement of the legislation, once that connected person information no longer meets the definition of secured information, it would be good practice for the contracting authority to update the contract award notice with the connected person information.

15. The contracting authority must publish the date the decision was made to award the public contract to the supplier. This is in addition to the estimated date the contract will be entered into which will be after any standstill period.

Publication of a contract award notice following a competitive tendering procedure

16. Please note the differences in paragraphs 21 - 24 if the contract award notice follows a competitive tendering procedure under a reserved procurement arrangement.

17. In a competitive tendering procedure, in addition to updating information provided in the tender notice and that set out above, the contract award notice must include information about ‘assessed tenders’ (as defined in section 50(5)).

18. For public contracts awarded in accordance with a competitive tendering procedure, DWAs will need to provide the following information (except in the case of a direct award under sections 41 or 43 of the Act):

1. the total number of tenders submitted by the contracting authority’s deadline for submitting tenders (discounting tenders submitted but subsequently withdrawn)
2. the total number of tenders assessed by the contracting authority, and
3. the total number of unsuccessful tenders assessed by the contracting authority which were submitted by:
   • a small and medium-sized enterprise, and
   • a non-governmental organisation that is value-driven and which principally reinvests its surpluses to further social, environmental or cultural objectives.

19. A contract award notice published on the central digital platform in relation to a contract awarded by a DWA, or a contract awarded by a DWA under a devolved Welsh procurement arrangement, will not include the names of unsuccessful suppliers. However, a DWA will be required to enter the name of the unsuccessful supplier(s) in the Welsh Digital Platform (Sell2Wales) when completing the information for the contract award notice related to contracts valued over £5 million. This information will not be published, but will be available to Welsh Government.

20. Information relating to unsuccessful suppliers and their tenders is not required for call-off contracts under frameworks which do not involve the assessment of ‘tenders’, rather ‘proposals’ are assessed under section 46(8) of the Act. Where a call-off contract is being awarded under a framework, regulation 28 of the Regulations requires the contracting authority to state whether a competitive selection process or award without further competition was used to award the contract (regulation 28(2)(h)).

Publication of a contract award notice following a competitive tendering procedure under a reserved procurement arrangement

21. This section (paragraphs 21 to 24) applies when a devolved Welsh authority (DWA) procures under a reserved procurement arrangement, (for example when a devolved Welsh authority is procuring under a framework or dynamic market established by a non-devolved authority such as Crown Commercial Service). DWAs must be aware that if they are procuring under a reserved procurement arrangement that they will need to comply with the UK government regulations on the information that must be provided in a contract award notice.

22. In a competitive tendering procedure, in addition to updating information provided in the tender notice and that set out in paragraphs 8 – 15 above, the contract award notice must also include information about ‘assessed tenders’ (as defined in section 50(5)) and, in the case of contracts over £5 million, the unsuccessful suppliers who submitted those tenders.

23. In competitive tendering procedures for public contracts valued at under £5 million, the contract award notice does not need to include information about each unsuccessful supplier. Instead, the contract award notice must include:

1. the total number of tenders submitted by the contracting authority’s deadline for submitting tenders (discounting tenders submitted but subsequently withdrawn)
2. the total number of tenders assessed by the contracting authority, and the total number of tenders assessed by the contracting authority which were submitted by either:
   1. a small and medium-sized enterprise, and
   2. a non-governmental organisation that is value-driven and which principally reinvests its surpluses to further social, environmental or cultural objectives.

24. Information relating to unsuccessful suppliers and their tenders is not required for call-off contracts under frameworks established by a contracting authority which is not a DWA, which do not involve the assessment of ‘tenders’, rather ‘proposals’ are assessed under section 46(8) of the Act. Where a call-off contract is being awarded under such a framework, regulation 27 of the UKG Regulations requires the contracting authority to state whether a competitive selection process or award without further competition was used to award the contract.

Lots

25. A procurement may result in more than one contract being awarded, such as where it is divided into lots.

26. Where a supplier is successful in more than one lot, it may be awarded separate contracts for each lot or a single contract covering all or some of the lots it has been successful in. In this scenario, once the nature and content of each contract is known, the contracting authority can determine whether the contract to be awarded is a public contract, for example because it is above the relevant threshold, and therefore whether a contract award notice is required.

27. It is possible for a procurement to result in some contracts that are public contracts, which generally require publication of a contract award notice, and some contracts that are not public contracts. It could also be the case that an above-threshold procurement results in only below-threshold contracts being awarded, for example because all lots and all contracts to be awarded are below-threshold.

28. For those contracts that are not public contracts, contracting authorities will need to determine whether a below-threshold contract details notice will need to be published under section 87(4).

29. Contracting authorities are encouraged to voluntarily publish a contract award notice for these below-threshold contracts in order to provide greater transparency about the outcome of the procurement.

30. If a contracting authority decides not to proceed with one or more lots during a procurement procedure (but not to terminate the entire procurement procedure), the contracting authority must include the ‘ceased lot information’ in the contract award notice, which will inform suppliers that those specific lots are not going to be awarded to any supplier. A contracting authority may decide not to award one or more lots in a procurement for a variety of reasons such as, for example, the contracting authority deciding it no longer wishes to procure the goods, services or works in those lots, or because no suitable tenders have been submitted with respect to those lots.

31. The contracting authority can decide to cease procurement of a specific lot at any time after the tender notice has been published. This decision should be shared with interested suppliers (where known) as soon as the decision is made as well as being set out in the contract award notice. If the decision not to award a contract for a specified lot is made after the final assessment of tenders, suppliers will be informed through the contract award notice.

32. A contracting authority is not required to explain or justify in the contract award notice its decision to cease the procurement of a specific lot, but it must have regard to the importance of sharing information for the purpose of allowing suppliers and others to understand its decision (section 12(1)(c) of the Act).

Timing of the notice: competitive tendering procedure

33. In a competitive tendering procedure, the contract award notice can only be published after assessment summaries have been issued to successful and unsuccessful suppliers (see guidance on assessment summaries). It is anticipated that in most circumstances the contracting authority will want to publish the contract award notice on the same day that the assessment summaries are provided, assuming assessment summaries are provided electronically. In others, they may want to build in a period of time following the provision of assessment summaries and before the contract award notice is published. The Act allows for both scenarios and does not prescribe any particular period of time between when assessment summaries are provided and when the contract award notice should be published. It will be for the contracting authority to determine the appropriate time to publish the contract award notice, taking into account the circumstances at hand, including the design of any competitive flexible procedure. Assessment summaries should be provided promptly after the award decision has been made.

Publication of a contract award notice prior to a direct award

34. In the case of directly awarded contracts, the contract award notice provides similar and updated information to that set out in the transparency notice regarding the justification for the direct award, as well as information about the supplier who has been awarded the contract (see guidance on direct award). This includes where a contract is being awarded to an excluded supplier, the grounds under which the supplier is excluded and the overriding public interest that justifies awarding the contract to that supplier.

35. If a contract is being awarded directly under regulations made under section 42 (Direct award to protect life, etc.), the title and registration number of the statutory instrument containing those regulations must be included in the contract award notice.

36. If the contract is being directly awarded under section 43 (Switching to direct award) of the Act, the contracting authority must set out in the contract award notice why it considers it has not received any suitable tenders or requests to participate (see section 43(2) for when a tender or request is not suitable) and why it considers that award under section 19 is not possible in the circumstances.

37. If a contracting authority has switched to direct award and awarded the contract under section 43, it does not need to complete the elements of the contract award notice related to unsuccessful suppliers as publication of the transparency notice (as required under section 44 of the Act) in this circumstance confirms that the contract is not to be awarded following a competitive tendering procedure.

Timing of the notice: Direct award

38. Where a contracting authority is directly awarding a contract, it must have published a transparency notice before it can publish a contract award notice (section 44(1) of the Act). The purpose of the transparency notice is to provide visibility of the intention to directly award a contract and to provide transparency in the decision process and an opportunity for interested parties to consider the justification for the direct award. (See guidance on direct award.)

39. A contracting authority can publish a contract award notice at any point after publication of the transparency notice.

40. Publication of a contract award notice is mandatory whenever a contract is directly awarded except, as set out in paragraph 9 above, when this is under Schedule 5, paragraph 15 of the Act (Direct award justifications: user choice contracts).

41. Where multiple contracts will be entered into as a result of a single procurement exercise, it is possible for more than one public contract to be set out in the same contract award notice. The contracts can either be above threshold, below threshold or a combination of the two.

Contract award notices published by private utilities

42. The requirements for a contract award notice published by private utilities are set out in regulations 29-31 of the Regulations, with regulations 30 and 31 dealing specifically with contract award notices for direct award and award of a public contract under a framework, respectively.

43. In all 3 regulations, private utilities are required to publish a description of any option in the public contract to supply additional goods, services or works; or to extend or renew the term of the contract, which is not required for a standard contract award notice under regulation 28 of the Regulations (as this is included in the contract details notice - see paragraph 11 above).

Contract award notices published by private utilities: competitive tendering procedures

44. Regulation 29 sets out the information required to be included in contract award notices published by private utilities following an open or competitive tendering procedure. For the most part this is the same as that required under regulation 28 for a standard contract award notice. The exceptions are that private utilities are not required to provide information about tenders or unsuccessful suppliers as required, as the case may be, for other contracting authorities.

Contract award notices published by private utilities: direct awards

45. Regulation 30 sets out the information required to be included in contract award notices published by private utilities prior to making a direct award. This requires less information to be included than for other contracting authorities.

Contract award notices published by private utilities: contracts awarded under frameworks

46. Whilst private utilities are required to publish contract award notices prior to entering into a contract awarded under a framework, the information required to be included in the notice is less than for other contracting authorities. Regulation 31 sets out this information.

Standstill

47. A standstill period, during which time the contracting authority is not permitted to enter into the contract, generally applies both to contracts awarded following a competitive tendering procedure and those that are directly awarded. However, there are some types of contracts (listed in section 51(3) of the Act) that do not require a standstill period to be observed, which are:

1. contracts directly awarded under:
   1. section 41 by reference to Schedule 5, paragraph 13 of the Act (extreme and unavoidable urgency)
   2. regulations made under section 42 of the Act (Direct award to protect life, etc.), and
   3. sections 41 or 43 by a private utility
2. call-off contracts awarded under a framework
3. contracts awarded under a dynamic market, and
4. light touch contracts.

48. Where there is no requirement to observe a standstill period, contracting authorities can, however, choose to apply a voluntary standstill period. Like any required standstill period, any voluntary standstill period must be at least 8 working days. If a voluntary standstill period is applied, a contracting authority must not enter into the contract before the end of that voluntary standstill period. Contracting authorities may wish to consider applying a voluntary standstill period as a means to manage the risk of the contract being set aside and other post contractual remedies for procurements and contract modifications (see section 104 of the Act).

49. A legal challenge issued and notified during the standstill period will trigger automatic suspension, which prevents a contracting authority from entering into the contract until the challenge is withdrawn or resolved or the court lifts the suspension. See guidance on remedies for more information. Any claims received outside of the standstill period will not trigger the automatic suspension, although suppliers may apply to the court for an injunction which would have the same effect.

Application of the standstill period

50. As set out at paragraph 8 above, publication of the contract award notice triggers, where relevant, the standstill period required under the Act (and any voluntary standstill period applied by the contracting authority).

51. The standstill period to apply is either the mandatory standstill period (8 working days) or any longer period set out in the contract award notice (for example, in the case of a particularly complex procurement where the contracting authority would like to provide suppliers more time to consider the information supplied either in their assessment summary or the award notice, or both).

52. The last day of the standstill period must be set out in the contract award notice. This is to ensure that all unsuccessful suppliers are clear about the deadline for issuing a claim which will trigger automatic suspension and prevent the contract from being entered into. The contract award notice may be updated to reflect a longer standstill period if a decision to extend it is made after the standstill period has commenced; for example, where a supplier raises a concern directly with the contracting authority during the standstill period and the outcome of discussions may determine whether a claim will be issued. The contracting authority may decide that extending the standstill period is beneficial to give the parties adequate time to engage and to ensure the supplier does not feel compelled to issue a claim that may otherwise have been avoided, simply due to the standstill deadline. In addition to re-publishing the contract award notice, the contracting authority should also notify affected suppliers directly of the extension to ensure that each supplier is aware they have longer to consider the information provided.

53. It is important to remember that publication of the contract award notice is the first working day (‘working day 1’) of the standstill period. If, for whatever reason, contracting authorities are unable to publish the contract award notice until late afternoon, they may wish to delay publication until the next morning in order to provide 8 full working days. Alternatively, contracting authorities could add an additional working day to their standstill period.

54. Assuming a standstill period of the minimum 8 working days, and subject to no legal challenges being issued by suppliers, contracting authorities must not enter into the contract until working day 9. Weekends and bank holidays (bank holidays in the UK are listed or created under the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1977) in any part of the United Kingdom do not count as working days for the purposes of calculating the standstill period. This means that a contracting authority will need to factor in all of the bank holidays in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland when calculating the standstill period.

55. The below example assumes an 8 working day standstill period with no public holidays and no legal challenges received (“WD” signifies “working day” in the tables below that are related to paragraphs 55 and 56):

56. The next example assumes an 8 working day standstill period that takes place over the Christmas period. The bank holidays (Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day, which are bank holidays throughout the UK, and 2nd January, which is a bank holiday in Scotland only) have been taken into account and assumes no legal challenge has been received – dates in the table reflect December 2024 and January 2025:

57. There is no obligation to enter into the contract immediately after the standstill period has ended.

Entry into a contract

58. The term ‘enter into’ a contract is not defined in the Act or the regulations. It is the point when a legally binding contract comes into effect, which will be when the essential elements under contract law are satisfied (offer and acceptance; consideration; and intention to create legally binding relations).

59. When all of those elements have been satisfied will be fact-specific. For example, it may be when the contract is signed and dated, and that is likely to be the relevant date in the majority of cases. However, the date the contract is entered into may instead be, for example, after a particular event has occurred or based on when services or work start under the contract. It is for the contracting authority to determine the relevant date based on the circumstances. In doing so, contracting authorities must continue to have regard to the objective of information-sharing set out in section 12(1) of the Act and be transparent about when contracts have been entered into.

60. The function of the contract award notice means that it is published at the end ofa process to award a contract. It will be preceded by either the tender notice (forcompetitive tendering procedures) or the transparency notice (for contractsawarded directly under sections 41 or 43 of the Act or under regulations madeunder section 42 of the Act). Tender notices and transparency notices are notrequired for procurements (i.e. call-offs) under a framework, however public contracts awarded under a framework will still require publication of a contract award notice.

• Guidance on direct award
• Guidance on competitive tendering procedures
• Guidance on assessing competitive tenders
• Guidance on assessment summaries
• Guidance on lots
• Guidance on below-threshold contracts
• Guidance on contract details notices
• Guidance on remedies
• Guidance on the Welsh Digital Platform (Sell2Wales)
• Guidance on notice sequencing and flowcharts

Where there is no requirement to publish a contract award notice, there will also be no requirement to publish either an assessment summary or to observe a standstill period in relation to the procurement. This is because the assessment summary must be provided before publishing the contract award notice (section 50(3)) and it is the contract award notice which triggers the standstill period (section 51(2)).