The conflicts assessment under the Procurement Act 2023: how to use the official template

The key facts

• The template is designed to help contracting authorities comply with section 83 of the Procurement Act 2023.
• Sections 81 and 82 of the Act confer a duty on contracting authorities to identify and mitigate conflicts of interest.
• A conflicts assessment must be prepared before publishing a tender notice or transparency notice in relation to a covered procurement, or a dynamic market notice in relation to establishing a dynamic market.
• The requirement applies even where the authority identifies no actual, potential or perceived conflicts of interest.
• When publishing those notices, the authority must confirm that a conflicts assessment has been prepared, and reviewed and revised as necessary until the end of the contract.
• Use of this template is not mandatory. It may be adapted, for example into a spreadsheet or an electronic system, but any approach must still comply with the Procurement Act 2023 and other legislation such as data protection law.
• An Authorised Individual should be responsible for preparing the conflicts assessment and revising it as necessary.
• Part A records the assessment itself. Part B records revisions and updates made on review. The assessment should be stored securely and its contents handled sensitively.

What the conflicts assessment is and when it is required

The conflicts assessment is the contracting authority's own record of how it has identified and dealt with conflicts of interest on a specific procurement. The template is a Government Commercial Function document developed to help authorities comply with section 83 of the Procurement Act 2023, which sits on top of the duty in sections 81 and 82 for contracting authorities to identify and mitigate conflicts of interest.

The timing point is the one most likely to catch teams out. The Act requires that a conflicts assessment must be prepared before publishing a tender notice or a transparency notice in relation to a covered procurement, or a dynamic market notice in relation to the establishment of a dynamic market. The assessment is therefore an upstream document, not something written up after evaluation.

It is also unconditional. The template is explicit that the requirement applies even if the contracting authority identifies no actual, potential or perceived conflicts of interest. A nil return is still a conflicts assessment, and it still has to exist before the notice goes out.

The obligation does not end at publication. When publishing these notices, the authority must confirm that a conflicts assessment has been prepared and reviewed and revised as necessary, and that review duty runs until the end of the contract. The assessment is a live record across the life of the contract, not a pre tender formality.

What Part A captures

Part A opens with the identifying header: the contracting authority name, the name of the procurement or contract, the unique identifier number, the procurement or contract reference number where it differs from the unique identifier, who completed the conflicts assessment with their name and role, who approved it with their name and role, the date of approval, and the planned date of the next review or the next review point. Setting the next review point at the moment of approval is what stops the review duty drifting.

Section one lists the individuals and teams relevant to the procurement or contract. For each, the template records their role or relevance to the procurement, the conflicts information received, for example by declaration or other means, and the date that was completed. This is where the assessment joins up to the individual declaration forms, and where gaps in coverage become visible.

Section two is the substance: details of any actual, potential or perceived conflicts identified and the mitigations. Each entry is numbered and records the individuals impacted, the type of conflict, meaning actual, potential or perceived, the details of the conflict, the suppliers impacted, the mitigations or steps taken or to be taken, and the date those mitigations were completed. Naming the impacted supplier is what allows the authority to reason about fairness between bidders rather than only about individual propriety.

Sections three and four then follow the supplier thread. Section three is completed for any supplier impacted in section two, recording the supplier name, whether further actions are required to remove an unfair advantage or disadvantage, what those further actions are, and the date the action was taken. Section four, where applicable, records suppliers excluded from the procurement due to an unfair advantage, with the supplier name, the reason for removing the supplier and the date the supplier was notified.

Part B, review and revision

Part B exists because the assessment has to keep pace with the procurement. It is completed when the conflicts assessment is reviewed and revised, and records the review date, whether there is a change to the assessment, the details of any change, and who approved it. Rows are added as required, so the section builds into a chronological history of the authority's conflicts position.

The template makes a useful record keeping suggestion here. It may be helpful for contracting authorities to create a new version of the conflicts assessment when revising, saving the old version for record-keeping purposes. That gives a point in time view of what the authority knew and decided at each stage, which is far more defensible than a single document that has been quietly overwritten.

Responsibility is assigned rather than assumed. The instructional text at the top of the template tells authorities to ensure that an Authorised Individual is responsible for preparing the conflicts assessment and revising it as necessary. In practice that means naming a person, not a team, before the notice is published.

Adapting the template and handling it securely

The template is a help, not a mandate. It states plainly that it is not mandatory to use it and that it may be adapted by contracting authorities, for example to align with individual organisational processes or systems, such as a spreadsheet format or being constrained within an electronic system. What cannot be adapted away is the underlying obligation: all approaches to conflicts of interest must still comply with the Procurement Act 2023 and any other legislation, such as those relating to data protection.

That data protection point deserves attention. A completed conflicts assessment contains named individuals, their relationships and their financial or professional interests. The template instructs that the conflicts assessment should be stored securely and its contents handled sensitively, and the header instructions ask authorities to add their own security marking and replace the Government Commercial Function logo with their own before use.

The template also carries a standard disclaimer: while every effort has been made to align it to policy, regulations and best practice, authorities should always seek commercial and legal advice in the context of specific procurements. Before completing the form, the guidance is to read and understand the Procurement Act 2023 guidance on conflicts of interest.

Structurally, remember that the assessment and the individual declaration form are two halves of one control. The declarations gather information from the people involved. The conflicts assessment is where the authority records what it did with that information, including the fairness consequences for named suppliers. An authority that has collected declarations but never assembled them into an assessment has not met the section 83 requirement.

How eSourcing Data helps

Because the assessment has to exist before the tender notice, transparency notice or dynamic market notice is published, the practical risk is sequencing. eSourcing Data keeps the conflicts record attached to the procurement record, so the assessment, the notice and the confirmation that an assessment was prepared sit in one place rather than in separate systems that have to be reconciled by hand.

The template's fields map closely to information the platform already holds: the procurement identifier and reference, the individuals and teams involved and their roles, the suppliers affected, and the dates on which actions were completed. Holding declarations, the assessment, the notice, the evaluation record and the award decision in a single audit trail is what turns a compliance document into usable evidence if the authority is later asked to show how a conflict was handled.

The review duty runs until the end of the contract, which is where paper based assessments usually lapse. eSourcing Data can carry the record forward from tender into contract management so that reviews are prompted at defined points and each revision is recorded with its date, its details and its approver, in line with Part B. Access controls also matter here, since the template requires the assessment to be stored securely and handled sensitively.

What to do about it

1. 1Name an Authorised Individual as owner of the conflicts assessment before any notice is published, and record who completed it and who approved it.
2. 2Prepare the assessment before publishing the tender notice, transparency notice or dynamic market notice, and prepare it even where no conflicts have been identified.
3. 3Map every individual and team relevant to the procurement in section one, and record how conflicts information was obtained from each and when.
4. 4For each conflict, record the type, the details, the individuals and the suppliers impacted, the mitigation taken or planned, and the date mitigation was completed.
5. 5Follow the supplier thread through sections three and four: decide whether further action is needed to remove an unfair advantage or disadvantage, and record any exclusion with the reason and the date the supplier was notified.
6. 6Set the next review point at the time of approval, and use Part B to log each review with its date, whether anything changed, the details and the approver, keeping earlier versions for the record.
7. 7Store the assessment securely with the right security marking, and handle its personal data in line with data protection obligations.