Autumn is often when a procurement pipeline stops being an intention and becomes a set of live decisions. Business cases move forward, incumbent end dates become less flexible, and teams ask for a route, specification or tender date. A concise assurance check can reveal gaps while they are still inexpensive to resolve.

This is not legal advice and a checklist cannot guarantee compliance. It is a practical review of the evidence a file should contain before its next decision. The Procurement Act 2023 operates alongside the authority's constitution, contract procedure rules, financial regulations and delegations. Where a procurement began under an earlier regime, confirm the transitional position before assuming that the current procedure applies.

1. Confirm the outcome, authority and budget

Start with the problem to be solved, intended outcomes, users and the authority's statutory or organisational power to act. Separate the desired outcome from a preferred solution or incumbent arrangement. Record the budget owner, funding source, affordability assumptions, approval point and dependencies on grants, savings or another programme. A file that cannot explain the need will struggle to explain its route or award.

For covered procurement, the covered procurement objectives guidance says authorities must have regard to value for money, maximising public benefit, information-sharing, integrity and barriers faced by SMEs. A clear outcome and budget record makes it possible to show how those objectives were considered rather than adding a generic statement after the route is fixed.

2. Confirm the route, threshold and VAT treatment

Establish the legal regime before selecting a route. Do not assume that an award in autumn is automatically governed by the Act; commencement, contract type, exemptions, special regimes and territorial arrangements can all matter. Record whether the proposed activity is covered procurement or a below-threshold or exempted procurement, and revisit that conclusion if the requirement changes.

Under the Act, value estimation follows section 4 and Schedule 3. The current valuation of contracts guidance says the general rule is the maximum value payable under the contract, including relevant options for additional supply, extension or renewal, and that the calculation is inclusive of VAT. It also explains the anti-avoidance rule. Retain the assumptions, forecast and review date; do not select a valuation method in order to avoid the rules.

3. Confirm governance, delegations and conflicts

Set out who can approve the strategy, documents, evaluation process, award recommendation and contract entry. Check the local constitution, standing orders, financial regulations and delegation limits as well as the national framework. The required approval may change with value, risk, term, framework use, waiver or urgency, so make the threshold and governance conclusion traceable.

Identify conflicts for officers, advisers and decision-makers before they influence route, engagement or evaluation. Record declarations, mitigation and any exclusion from a role. The file should allow a later reader to see that the people who shaped the decision were authorised and that conflicts were actively managed.

4. Record preliminary market engagement and the section 17 decision

Preliminary market engagement can improve requirements and supplier access, but it must not give a participating supplier an unfair advantage or distort competition. The preliminary market engagement guidance says the purpose, participants, information shared, learning, confidentiality and conflict controls should be understood and recorded. Informal conversations can be preliminary market engagement if their purpose falls within section 16.

The Act does not require an authority to conduct preliminary market engagement. If it carries it out in a procurement to which section 17 applies, it must either publish a preliminary market engagement notice before the tender notice or explain in the tender notice why it did not. The current guidance confirms that section 17 does not apply to private utilities. Build that publish-or-explain decision into the notice plan rather than leaving it to the point of publication.

5. Test the specification and intended outcomes

Check that the specification describes the outcome, scope, standards, interfaces, service levels, implementation and performance evidence clearly enough for suppliers to prepare comparable bids. Do not prescribe a solution unnecessarily or carry an incumbent model forward without identifying why it is needed. The requirement should be capable of being priced, evaluated and managed.

Link the specification to the outcome statement, risks and proposed contract-management plan. Consider whether accessibility, social, economic or environmental outcomes are relevant and workable, and whether the draft creates avoidable barriers for SMEs, VCSEs or new entrants. Resolve material assumptions before issue; an evaluation model cannot compensate for a requirement that remains unclear.

6. Separate conditions of participation from award criteria

Conditions of participation assess the supplier's legal and financial capacity or technical ability to perform the contract. Award criteria assess the merits of the tender. The conditions of participation guidance says conditions must be proportionate to the nature, complexity and cost of the contract, clear in the tender notice and associated documents, and assessed separately from award criteria.

For each condition, record why it is needed, the evidence and timing, and whether the supplier may rely on an associated supplier. For each award criterion, identify the outcome, relative importance, scoring descriptors and assessment methodology. The assessment plan should never transfer a supplier-capability judgement into tender scoring simply because the same team is considering both.

7. Check pricing and whole-life value

Ensure that the pricing schedule reflects the specification, term, volume, indexation, options, mobilisation, exit and change-control arrangements. Finance and procurement should be able to trace the evaluated price to the charge structure they expect to administer. State affordability limits and unresolved assumptions before issue.

Value for money is not necessarily the lowest initial price. The assessing competitive tenders guidance describes it as the optimal whole-life blend of economy, efficiency and effectiveness that achieves the intended outcome. Test operating, transition, maintenance, change, risk and exit costs where they are relevant, and make the pricing mechanism intelligible to suppliers and evaluators.

8. Validate the timetable, notices and publication path

Build backwards from service commencement, allowing time for governance, engagement, documents, publication, tender preparation, clarifications, evaluation, approvals, standstill where applicable, contract entry and mobilisation. Give suppliers enough time to prepare quality tenders and give evaluators time to complete a credible assessment. A compressed timetable should be a consciously approved risk, not an accidental outcome.

Map notices and publication route to the chosen procedure. The central digital platform factsheet explains that many buyers publish notices through an eSender, while Find a Tender remains the central digital platform. Confirm publisher access, identifiers, internal quality checks and contingency arrangements before the notice is due. The publication plan belongs in the procurement plan, not after award.

9. Rehearse evaluation and preserve the assessment record

Before publication, test whether an evaluator can apply the proposed model consistently, whether the evidence requested answers the question and whether the result would identify the most advantageous tender. The official guidance says award criteria must relate to the contract's subject matter, be clear, measurable and specific, and be a proportionate means of assessing tenders. The assessment methodology must explain how tenders will be assessed.

Prepare declarations, evaluator briefing, clarification controls, individual scoring, moderation, consensus and approval records. The file should show why the awarded tender met the published requirements and was assessed as the most advantageous tender, rather than asking a reviewer to reconstruct the decision from a final score alone.

10. Plan handover and contract management before award

Name the people who will own mobilisation, performance, risks, supplier relationship, change control, payment approval, notices and renewal or exit planning after contract entry. Translate material tender commitments into contract obligations and workable measures. Where KPIs, assurance, reporting or social-value commitments are evaluated, agree who will check them, what evidence will be retained and how a delivery concern will be escalated.

The main takeaway is that a procurement file should tell a coherent story from need to contract management. It need not be over-engineered, but every material decision should be traceable, authorised and capable of being acted on. The Support Hub provides general procurement reference resources for teams wanting a structured starting point. Prestige's services can provide route-to-market, tender-document and evaluation-assurance support, while clients retain all approvals, scoring and award decisions.

Important scope note

This article is general information, not legal advice. Requirements depend on the procurement's legal regime, value, contract type, route, territory and local governance arrangements. Readers should check current law, guidance and their own organisation-specific rules before acting.