Pipeline notices under the Procurement Act 2023: publishing your forward look and why it matters

The key facts

• One of the most important things contracting authorities can do is provide the market with information about current and future public contract opportunities by publishing a forward looking procurement pipeline.
• The Act requires the publication of pipeline notices in certain circumstances.
• Pipeline notices are of particular benefit to small and medium sized enterprises and to voluntary, community and social enterprises.
• They give those suppliers time to plan for future work, which supports a competitive and diverse market.
• The legal framework is section 93 of the Act and regulation 15.
• The guidance on the central digital platform and publication of information is relevant to this area.
• The guidance on valuation of contracts is also relevant, since valuation affects when the requirement is triggered.
• The guidance is technical and aimed at procurement practitioners and commercial policy leads in contracting authorities.

What this guidance is and who it applies to

This document sits in the technical guidance series supporting the Procurement Act 2023 and deals with pipeline notices. It is written for procurement practitioners and commercial policy leads in contracting authorities, and it is intended to help with interpretation and understanding of the Act rather than to replace it. It should be read in conjunction with the Act and its associated regulations.

The obligation applies to contracting authorities in certain circumstances, which are defined in section 93 of the Act and regulation 15. Those provisions determine which authorities have to publish, when, and covering what.

Suppliers are the intended beneficiaries and should read this material too. A published pipeline is public information that can be planned against, and knowing that authorities are required to publish in defined circumstances tells suppliers where to look and what to expect.

What a pipeline notice is for

The guidance opens with a strong statement of purpose. One of the most important things contracting authorities can do is to provide the market with information about current and future public contract opportunities by publishing a forward looking procurement pipeline. That is framed as a positive commercial act, not just a compliance obligation.

The Act then converts part of that good practice into a requirement, mandating the publication of pipeline notices in certain circumstances. So there are two layers to consider: the statutory duty where it applies, and the broader value of transparency about the forward programme, which the guidance clearly regards as good practice more generally.

The distinction matters when planning. An authority that publishes only the minimum required by section 93 is compliant. An authority that treats the pipeline as a market engagement tool gets the commercial benefit the guidance is pointing at, which is a better prepared and more competitive supplier base.

Why it matters for smaller suppliers

The guidance identifies the beneficiaries explicitly. Publishing a forward pipeline is of particular benefit to small and medium sized enterprises and to voluntary, community and social enterprises, because it provides them with time to plan for future work.

The reason is straightforward. Large suppliers maintain bid teams and can mobilise quickly when a tender appears. Smaller organisations cannot. For them the constraint is usually capacity, and capacity has to be arranged in advance: recruiting or freeing up staff, arranging finance, forming partnerships, obtaining accreditations, building the evidence a bid will require. None of that can be done inside a short tender window.

Advance visibility changes that calculation. A supplier who knows six or twelve months ahead that a relevant contract is coming can prepare and bid competitively. A supplier who first learns of it when the notice is published often has to decline, not because they cannot deliver but because they cannot mobilise a bid in time.

The guidance links this directly to market outcomes, describing the effect as ensuring a competitive and diverse market. That is the point of the obligation: not transparency for its own sake, but a wider field of capable bidders.

Applying it in practice

The first task is to establish whether and when your organisation is required to publish, working from section 93 and regulation 15. The guidance flags the valuation of contracts material as relevant, which is a signal that value assessments feed into the requirement and need to be done properly rather than estimated loosely.

The second is the publication mechanism. The guidance points to the material on the central digital platform and publication of information, and pipeline notices should be published through the proper route so they are discoverable alongside other procurement information rather than buried on an individual authority's website.

The third is data quality, and this is where most of the value is won or lost. A pipeline of vague line items with no indication of scope, scale or timing does not help anyone plan. Suppliers need enough detail to decide whether to invest in preparing. Authorities in turn need an internal process that collects forward requirements from service areas reliably, because a pipeline is only as good as the information the organisation can gather about its own future spending.

The final discipline is maintenance. Plans change. A pipeline published once and never revisited quickly becomes misleading, and a market that has been misled once treats the next publication with scepticism. Regular refresh, with changes visible, is what makes the pipeline credible.

How eSourcing Data helps

A pipeline is only as good as the forward information an organisation can actually collect. eSourcing Data holds the procurement plan alongside live activity and contract records, so upcoming requirements, expiring contracts and planned extensions are visible in one place rather than scattered across service area spreadsheets that have to be chased before every publication.

Because contract end dates and renewal points are held in the platform, much of the forward look assembles itself. Teams can see what is due to be recompeted and when, which turns pipeline publication from an occasional data gathering exercise into a report drawn from information the organisation already maintains.

On the supplier side, eSourcing Data gives smaller organisations a single place to register interest and keep their details current, so the advance warning a pipeline provides translates into actual engagement. That supports the outcome the guidance is aiming at: SMEs and voluntary, community and social enterprises with enough time and enough information to prepare a competitive bid.

What to do about it

1. 1Establish whether and when your organisation must publish pipeline notices, working from section 93 and regulation 15.
2. 2Read the valuation of contracts guidance, since value assessments feed into the publication requirement.
3. 3Publish through the central digital platform route described in the publication of information guidance.
4. 4Set up an internal process to collect forward requirements from service areas rather than chasing them each time.
5. 5Include enough scope, scale and timing detail for a supplier to decide whether to prepare for the opportunity.
6. 6Use contract end dates and planned extensions as the backbone of the forward look.
7. 7Refresh the pipeline on a regular cycle so the market can rely on it.