Following the "go live" date of the Procurement Act 2023 (the "Act") on 23 February 2025, contracting authorities and suppliers to the public sector are busy getting to grips with the new legislative regime and, in particular, the new transparency obligations that have been introduced through an enhanced noticing regime.
One of those new obligations is the requirement for in-scope contracting authorities to publish Pipeline Notices ("PN") as a way of informing suppliers of upcoming public contract opportunities.
What are they?
PN's are required under section 93(1) of the Act for contracting authorities who consider that they will pay more than £100m for "relevant contracts" in the coming financial year. "Relevant contracts" are defined under section 93(4) as those contracts involving the supply of goods, services or works to the contracting authority other than exempted contracts. This will likely cover most contracts entered into by contracting authorities. The recently updated Pipeline Notice Guidance from May 2025 (the "Guidance") confirms in paragraph 8 that this calculation will need to include below-threshold contracts and frameworks.
Contracting authorities must, in the first instance, assess their existing/upcoming procurement portfolio value to confirm whether this requirement will be relevant to them. The requirements for PN's do not apply to either private utility companies or a transferred Northern Ireland Authority.
What needs to be included?
Once a contracting authority has established that they are required to publish a PN, each PN must be published within 56 days from the beginning of the financial year which is defined in section 93(4)(a) as commencing on April 1 each year. The first set of PNs under the Act were therefore required to be published by 26 May 2025 (and subsequent PNs will need to be published by 26 May in future years), and there has been a flurry of activity in getting these notices published over the last few weeks.
A PN is required for any public contract which has an estimated value of more than £2 million in respect of which a contracting authority intends to publish a tender notice or transparency notice during the relevant reporting period (of 18 months).
On that basis, PN's will need to include contracts to be advertised by reference to a dynamic market (which will require a tender notice to be published). However, PN's do not need to include details of a public contract above £2m which will be awarded by reference to a framework agreement (whether that framework was established under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (the "PCR") or the Act).
Notwithstanding the above, the Guidance does set out that contracting authorities are encouraged to go further than required by the Act by including in their pipeline notice contracts above £2m where publication of a tender notice or transparency notice is not required, for example to alert the market where a contracting authority intends to award a call-off contract under a third party's framework through a competitive selection process. The same applies to contracts awarded under a DPS as established under the PCR (which do not require a tender notice to be published).
Contracting authorities should also consider their obligations under section 12(4) to have regard to the fact that small and medium-sized enterprises may face particular barriers to participation and consideration should be given to ways that such barriers can be removed or reduced, and it is suggested that publishing a wider array of opportunities via PNs will be a good means of helping SMEs to overcome those obstacles. This is reflected in the Guidance which encourages contracting authorities to go further than required under the Act by including the following in their pipeline notices:
a. works contracts above £2 million but below the works threshold at the time of publication where the contracting authority intends to carry out a competitive tendering process;
b. contracts below £2 million where the contracting authority is intending to advertise the opportunity (due to their beneficial impact for SME's);
c. relevant contracts to be awarded over a period that is longer than 18 months.
Contracting Authorities who are unsure whether they will reach the £100m threshold in a given financial year are also encouraged to publish a pipeline notice, as well as those who are exempt from publishing.
Additionally, contracting authorities are generally encouraged to provide visibility of other changes as the lifecycle of a procurement develops, such as whether a procurement in a PN has been terminated, or by publishing a new PN if a new opportunity arises during the course of the financial year. There is a significant degree of flexibility in bringing forward the opportunities advertised in PNs, and the Guidance is clear that publication in a PN does not bind a contracting authority to commence a particular procurement (recognising that there is scope for change during the relevant period).
One PN or many?
It was originally understood that the obligation for a PN under section 93 of the Act would require contracting authorities to publish a single PN on an annual basis, setting out all of the relevant contracts in a single place.
However, the Guidance has since been updated to confirm that in practice a PN should be published for each individual procurement which is part of a contracting authorities' pipeline (rather than one singular PN containing numerous procurements) so that future notices within that procurement can be linked back to the original PN.
This information will be displayed on the central digital platform as a single 'pipeline notice view' where all procurements advertised by a contracting authority will be "gathered" and will be visible together. Contracting authorities will therefore need to be mindful of the increased portal administration that will be required to comply with this provision (although, as we have noted above, there will be flexibility to update PNs over the course of the year, including publishing new PNs if further opportunities are identified in due course).
If you have further queries relating to pipeline notices, please do contact one of our procurement experts.
