Public procurement regulations recap - East of England Collaborative Procurement Hub

Navigating the three different sets of public procurement regulations

Written by Amie Allday, Procurement Specialist in the Corporate, Clinical and Regulation team

There are currently three different regulations that we are navigating in the world of public procurement: PCR2015, PA23 and PSR. Each of these have their own set of governing rules and guidance that must be followed, so we thought it would be helpful to have a quick recap on each.

Public Procurement Regulations 2015 (PCR2015)

Even through frameworks and dynamic markets are now being tendered under the Procurement Act, there are still many out there that were awarded under PCR 2015, as a reminder, publishing notices on Contracts Finder is still required where it is award made under this regime.

For more information on this can be found on our website.

Procurement Act 2023 (PA23)

Any contract (within scope) or where a PA23 framework or dynamic market has been used to award a contract since 24 February 2025, there is a requirement to publish a different set of notices (UK Notices).

One of the main differences between PCR2015 and PA23 is that the Contract Award Notice starts standstill under most procurement types under this regime. We also now have to publish a Contract Details Notice to award the contract.

There are a range of new notices that need to be published before going out to tender if not using a framework. It is worth noting that if you publish a notice alerting the market to a possible tender, even if you do not proceed to a tender process, it is best practice to publish a Procurement Termination Notice.

One of the notices new to PA23 is mandatory. UK1: Pipeline Notice is required for any organisation where spend is over £100m. We initially thought it would be one overarching notice, but as we realised last year, it is one notice per potential procurement over the next 18 months. These need to be completed 56 days from the start of the financial year.

Here comes the reminder – Pipeline Notices need to be published by the 26 May 2026 and must feature any contract over £2m and should include direct awards.

More information on notices and when they should be published can be found on our website.

Provider Selection Regime (PSR)

PSR should be now be embedded within procurement teams, and they should have an understanding of when the different routes that can be used to procure healthcare services. One top tip is to always refer back to the CPV code that governs the type of service you’re procuring. Does it fall within scope? Is there a patient involved? If so, it is likely that this would fall under the PSR regime.

There is one noticeable differences between the regulations for most suitable provider and the competitive process. PSR set out the criteria that suppliers must satisfy, the 5 Key Criteria, and while they don’t define the questions that can be asked or the weighting for each, they do give the overarching heading and it includes Social Value.

Going back to notices, when awarding a contract under PSR, in all instances the F03 notice must be published but depends on the process as to what this notice means. For instance, for Direct Award A, an F03 confirms the award but for a competitive process, this notice is used to alert the market that there is an intention to award.

NHS England have helpfully produced a PSR Toolkit, including a Find a Tender Supplementary Guide that provides wording to populate these notices, which can be found on their website.

As with PA23 and the Pipeline Notice, PSR also requires the relevant authority to publish an Annual Summary online. Regulation 25 sets out what must be included in the publication, and this year it would include all contracts awarded between the 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026. This must be uploaded no later than six months following the end of the financial year so you have until 31 October 2026 to do this.

More information on notices and when they should be published is available on our website.

Standstill

With three sets of regulations, we also have three different standstill periods.

We’ve pulled together a quick guide below:

PCR2015	PA23	PSR
The standstill period must be at least 10 calendar days if the notification is sent electronically. The standstill period starts the day after the notification is sent.	The standstill period is eight working days. As this is working days, all UK bank holidays must be considered when calculating standstill. The standstill period starts the day the notification is sent.	The standstill period is eight working days. As this is working days, all UK bank holidays must be considered when calculating standstill. The standstill period starts the day after the notification is sent.
Example: If the award notification is issued on 17 February, standstill ends on 27 February and contracts can be signed from 28 February.	Example: If the award notification is issued 17 February, standstill ends 26 February and contracts can be signed from 27 February.	Example: If the award notification is issued 17 February, standstill ends 27 February and contracts can be signed from 28 February.