Contract notices

1. The law since February 2025

The Procurement Act 2023 received Royal Assent on 26 October 2023.^[1] Its main provisions came into force on 24 February 2025, replacing the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 for new procurements.^[2][3]

A procurement that was already under way before that date, for example because a contract notice had been submitted or an opportunity published on Contracts Finder, continues under the 2015 regulations until it ends.^[4] For some years, then, councils will publish notices under both sets of rules.

2. Find a Tender

Under the Act, notices are published on the central digital platform, which is the Find a Tender service at find-tender.service.gov.uk.^[5][6]Find a Tender has carried notices for higher-value UK contracts since 1 January 2021, when it replaced the EU's Tenders Electronic Daily.^[7]

3. The notices

The Act sets out a series of notices covering the life of a contract. Each has a code on Find a Tender, from UK1 to UK17.^[8] The ones a reader will most often meet are:

For a contract worth more than £5 million, the council must also publish a copy of the contract itself within 90 days of entering into it (180 days for light touch contracts).^[13]

4. Thresholds

The full procurement rules apply to contracts above the thresholds in Schedule 1 to the Act.^[16] From 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2027, the thresholds for a council are £207,720 for goods and services and £5,193,000 for works, both including VAT.^[17]

5. Smaller contracts

Below those thresholds, a council that advertises a contract worth £30,000 or more, including VAT, must first publish a below-threshold tender notice. This does not apply where it invites only particular suppliers. Once it has entered into such a contract, it must publish a contract details notice as soon as reasonably practicable.^[18] Both notices go on Find a Tender.^[19]

Councils also publish contracts and invitations to tender over £5,000 under the Local Government Transparency Code 2015. The guide to the Transparency Code covers that data.

6. Contracts Finder and earlier notices

Contracts Finder was the main place for smaller contract notices under the 2015 regulations. Since 24 February 2025, new below-threshold opportunities are advertised on Find a Tender. Contracts Finder is still used for award notices from procurements run under the 2015 regulations, including call-offs from frameworks set up under them.^[20]

Under those regulations, councils published opportunities and awards on Contracts Finder for contracts worth £30,000 or more including VAT, a threshold that applied from 21 December 2022. Award notices gave the supplier's name, the date, the value, and whether the supplier was a small or medium-sized business or a voluntary organisation.^[21][22][23] Earlier tenders and contracts can still be searched on Contracts Finder.^[24]

7. How SIBA uses these records

SIBA reads the notices councils publish on Find a Tender and Contracts Finder, and compares what is published, and when, with the Act and with similar councils. The methodology sets out how comparisons are made.