Planned procurement notices under the Procurement Act 2023: the official guidance, explained

The key facts

• A planned procurement notice is optional. It is published before a procurement begins to give the market as much advance information as possible.
• Planned procurement notices sit in section 15 of the Procurement Act 2023, with content requirements set out in regulation 16.
• The notice is not used when establishing a dynamic market, when awarding in accordance with a framework, or when making a direct award.
• A notice is a qualifying planned procurement notice if it is published at least 40 days and no longer than one year before publication of the tender notice.
• Where a qualifying planned procurement notice has been published, the contracting authority may, if it chooses to, reduce the tendering period to a minimum of ten days.
• The notice must contain much of the information required in the corresponding tender notice, to the extent that information is known at the time of publication.
• If the procurement at tender stage no longer reflects what was set out in the qualifying notice, for example photocopiers becoming computers, the authority cannot rely on the original notice and a fresh start is needed under section 15(3).
• Planned procurement notices must be published on the central digital platform.
• Reducing the tendering period must be weighed against the covered procurement objectives in section 12, including the need to remove or reduce barriers to participation faced by small and medium sized enterprises.

What the planned procurement notice is and who it applies to

The guidance covers the planned procurement notice created by section 15 of the Procurement Act 2023. It is an optional notice, published before a procurement begins, and its purpose is straightforward: to tell the market what is coming. The guidance is clear that this notice goes further than a pipeline notice and is designed to give as much advance information to the market as possible.

All contracting authorities may use the notice. It is not, however, available for every route to market. The guidance states that a planned procurement notice is not used when establishing a dynamic market, when awarding in accordance with a framework, or when making a direct award. In practice that means it belongs to competitive procurements that will be advertised by a tender notice.

Because it is optional, publishing a planned procurement notice is a choice rather than a duty, and publishing one does not lock a contracting authority into running the procurement in exactly the form described. The guidance recognises that an authority might reach the tender stage and find that its procurement no longer reflects what it set out in the notice.

What the notice has to contain

Content is governed by regulation 16. The notice must set out much of the information that would be required in the corresponding tender notice, to the extent that this information is known at the time of publication. That qualification matters. A planned procurement notice is published early, sometimes up to a year ahead, and the guidance does not expect an authority to invent detail it does not yet have.

The practical consequence is that the quality of a planned procurement notice depends on how much definition work has already been done. Authorities that have shaped the requirement, thought about lotting, and formed a view on likely timing can publish something genuinely useful. Authorities that publish a near empty notice to bank the timing benefit are missing the point of the mechanism and are less likely to get the market response they want.

Tender notice requirements themselves sit in regulation 18, with related provisions in regulations 19 to 22. Reading the tender notice content requirements alongside regulation 16 is the fastest way to work out what a good planned procurement notice looks like for a given procurement.

Qualifying notices and the reduced tendering period

The main incentive to publish is the qualifying planned procurement notice. The guidance states that if the notice is published at least 40 days and no longer than one year before publication of the tender notice, then the notice is a qualifying planned procurement notice. Publish it too close to the tender notice, or too far ahead, and the qualifying status is not available.

Where a contracting authority publishes a qualifying planned procurement notice, it may, if it chooses to, reduce the tendering period to a minimum of ten days. The wording is permissive throughout. Qualifying status creates an option, not an obligation, and the guidance is explicit that the authority chooses whether to use it.

That choice has to be made against the covered procurement objectives in section 12 of the Act. The guidance points in particular to the need to remove or reduce barriers to participation that small and medium sized enterprises face, and to the importance of allowing bidders sufficient time to understand what is being asked of them. A ten day window on a complex requirement can quietly exclude exactly the suppliers an authority says it wants to attract.

There is also a limit on how far a qualifying notice can be stretched. If the procurement at tender stage no longer reflects what was described in the notice, the authority cannot lean on it. The guidance uses the example of a notice about photocopiers followed by a procurement for computers. Where the requirement has changed substantially, the position resets and section 15(3) governs starting again.

How it fits with other notices and where it is published

The planned procurement notice is one step in a sequence rather than a standalone document. The guidance confirms it may be published before or after a pipeline notice or a preliminary market engagement notice, and that it must be followed by the subsequent notices in the procurement, starting with the tender notice.

Publication is on the central digital platform. This replaces the older practice under which notices could appear on a buyer profile, and it means the notice is discoverable in one place alongside the rest of the procurement record for that requirement.

For suppliers, this changes what early market monitoring looks like. A planned procurement notice is a firm signal that a specific tender is coming, with a defined window of at least 40 days and no more than a year before the tender notice appears, and with the real possibility that the tendering period will be short. Suppliers who wait for the tender notice on a procurement with a ten day period will often be too late to bid well.

Applying this in practice

For buyers, the decision point comes early. If a procurement is likely to need a compressed tendering period later, the planned procurement notice has to be published inside the qualifying window, which means the definition work has to happen far enough in advance to produce a notice with real content in it. Leaving the decision until the tender is nearly ready removes the option entirely.

The second discipline is checking the notice against the procurement as it actually turns out. Requirements evolve between an early notice and a tender, and the guidance draws a line between normal refinement and a change so substantial that the original notice no longer describes the procurement. Recording that assessment at the point of publishing the tender notice is the cheapest way to defend a reduced tendering period later.

The third is proportionality on timescales. A ten day minimum is a floor, not a target. Where the requirement is complex, or where the authority is trying to widen participation among smaller suppliers, choosing a longer period than the minimum is entirely consistent with the guidance and with section 12.

How eSourcing Data helps

eSourcing Data gives buyers a single place to plan and publish the notice sequence, so a planned procurement notice, the tender notice that follows it, and the award record all sit against the same requirement rather than in separate inboxes and spreadsheets. Because the qualifying test turns on the gap between two publication dates, having those dates held in one system removes the most common source of error: nobody being certain when the earlier notice actually went out.

The platform captures the reasoning as well as the dates. Where a team decides to reduce the tendering period, or decides not to, that decision and its rationale can be recorded against the procurement, alongside the check that the tendered requirement still reflects what the planned procurement notice described. If the decision is questioned later, the audit trail is already there instead of being reconstructed from memory.

For suppliers, eSourcing Data turns early notices into usable lead time. Planned procurement notices published on the central digital platform can be tracked against the categories and buyers a supplier cares about, so bid teams see a requirement while there is still time to engage, rather than meeting it for the first time inside a ten day tendering window.

What to do about it

1. 1Decide at the definition stage whether the procurement is likely to need a reduced tendering period, and work back from the 40 day to one year qualifying window.
2. 2Check the route to market first: a planned procurement notice is not used for establishing a dynamic market, awarding under a framework, or a direct award.
3. 3Draft the notice against regulation 16 and the tender notice content in regulation 18, including everything known at the time of publication.
4. 4Record the publication date of the planned procurement notice so the gap to the tender notice can be evidenced.
5. 5Before publishing the tender notice, confirm the procurement still reflects the planned procurement notice, and note the conclusion.
6. 6Treat ten days as a floor rather than a default, and document why the chosen tendering period is proportionate under the section 12 objectives, including barriers faced by small and medium sized enterprises.
7. 7Publish on the central digital platform and make sure the following notices in the sequence are scheduled.