Details on linking payments to contracts

A recent UK Government Transforming Public Procurement update covered a handful of new legislative requirements under Procurement Act 2023, addressing the linking of payments to contracts. But does the Schools Exemption apply? 🤔

The following update covers three aspects of the new Procurement Act regime:

• Linking £30k+ payments to contracts

• UK17 Payments Compliance now live (demonstrating payment of all valid invoices within 30 days)

• Below-threshold contracts - supplier registration on the Central Digital Platform

For all three of the above...

• CPC members who are schools, MATs and FE colleges are exempted from compliance under the Schools Exemption.

• CPC members in the HE sector (universities, etc.) are not exempted and should be complying with these requirements.

• Crescent Services customers from the wider public sector are equally not exempted and should be complying.

There is an excellent, detailed guidance note covering these three new aspects, together with a fourth requirement, that of publishing details of contractor/supplier performance against KPIs:

The fourth requirement covered in the above guidance is that of publishing supplier performance against formal contract KPIs where the awarded contract is in excess of £5million. All our CPC & Crescent Services members are caught by this requirement, as there is no exemption from this other than for private utilities companies. We will advise members separately about this.

Linking £30k+ payments

The requirement to publish details of every individual £30k+ invoice payment made against a public contract, only applies to contracts whose procurement commenced on/after 1st April of 2026 (so there will be no awarded contracts yet, against which suppliers are submitting invoices and even then, it is only where an individual invoice itself is of £30k+ (including VAT) that the publication requirement exists). This only applies to Public Contract (which means a contract which on award is greater than the relevant threshold in place at the time - £207,720 for supplies/services, for example)

If a public body tenders a four-lot contract that in total exceeds the relevant threshold and awards four contracts (one per lot), then unless the value of one of the lots is greater than threshold, whilst the overall awarded contract is above-threshold and deemed to be a public contract, the individual lotted contract awards are sub-threshold, thus not public contracts; therefore the requirement to publish details of any £30k+ invoices does not exist. The publication will be facilitated through the Find a Tender Service but it will not be via a 'UK X' notice. It will be via a spreadsheet upload, which has yet to be fully defined.

What should our CPC Higher Education/Crescent Services members be doing at the moment? Simply noting the award of a public contract which commenced procurement on/after 1st April 2026 and tagging this in their finance system so that any future £30k+ invoices paid against said contract can be highlighted as in-scope for publication.

UK17 Payments Compliance Notice

Pre-29th April, any HE or Crescent Services member needs to publish a UK17 Payments Compliance Notice, covering:

i. The name of the Contracting Authority.

ii. The start and end date of the reporting period (which is recommended to be 1st October 2025 to 31st March 2026).

iii. The average number of days taken to pay all third-party supplier invoices.

iv. The percentage of such invoices paid between day 1 and 30 (where day 1 is the first day after the invoice is dated).

v. The percentage of such invoices paid between day 31 and 60.

vi. The percentage of such invoices paid after day 61.

vii. The percentage of such invoices not paid.

viii. A statement of a director-level officer within the Contracting Authority stating that they approve the publication of such notice, giving their name and job title.

This only applies to payments made against public contracts (that is, contracts which exceed the relevant threshold in place at the date of contract award), so not all third party supplier invoices, only those relating to £207,720+ etc. contracts).

This is a rinse and repeat action, every six months.

Below-threshold contracts - supplier CDP registration

Any Crescent Services member or higher education CPC member is not exempt from ss.84-88 of the Procurement Act (award of below-threshold contracts). This element relates to any contract with a value of £30k to threshold (for our HE members and wider sub central public bodies) of £12k-threshold for CS members who are central government departments. These members are not compelled to openly tender below-threshold but if they do, they must publish a below-threshold tender notice.

Importantly, any Crescent Services or higher education CPC member tendering through a Procurement Act 2023 compliant framework or running a standalone closed tender process (where suppliers known to the member are added to a tender list) must publish a below-threshold Contract Details Notice to let the world know that the contract has been awarded.

(d) cannot now be complied with, if the supplier to whom the sub-threshold contract has been awarded, is not registered on the Central Digital Platform - because the supplier will need to provide its PPON (Public Procurement Organisation Number) which it will receive upon registration.

For any suppliers not already registered by virtue of participating in above-threshold tender processes, the registration process is curtailed and requires only the following:

i. The supplier’s name

ii. The supplier’s address

iii. The supplier’s email address

iv. The supplier’s companies house number or other registry number

v. Confirmation of SME and/or VCSE status

🗓️ The requirement comes into effect on 1st April 2026 - so any sub-threshold contract details notice published on/after 1st April 2026 (i.e. now!) will require this information, even if the procurement process commenced earlier in the year... 🗓️