The Executive - Individual Member Decisions of Wokingham Council are scheduled to meet on Thursday 25 September 2025. At the meeting, Councillor Imogen Shepherd-DuBey, Executive Councillor for Finance and Governance, is expected to consider the council's response to a government consultation on procurement reform. The consultation is intended to inform the development of future primary legislation to amend the Procurement Act 2023¹.

Procurement Reform Consultation

The Cabinet Office has launched a public consultation on plans for further reforms to public procurement, with the aim of strengthening British industry, creating jobs and enhancing skills. The consultation is intended to inform the development of future primary legislation to amend the Procurement Act 2023 when parliamentary time allows.

Wokingham Borough Council is preparing a response to the consultation, which Councillor Imogen Shepherd-DuBey is being asked to endorse.

The report pack states that the council is supportive of the majority of the proposals, including those that plan to improve:

• Supply chains
• Transparency
• Flexibility for people-based contracts
• Standardisation of social value

However, the council has concerns about some proposals, including:

• Targets for SME² and VCSE³ spend, which may lead to decisions that are not value for money or the best provider
• Extending the requirements on payments on all contracts including notifiable below threshold contracts

The council's detailed responses to the consultation questions are included in Appendix A - Procurement Reform consultation.

In summary, the council:

• Strongly agrees with mandating large contracting authorities with spend over £100m per annum to set 3-year targets for their procurement spend with SMEs and VCSEs and publish annual progress against these targets, as this would help increase spend with SMEs and VCSEs. However, the council also notes that setting target spend can lead to negative unintended consequences, as there may be too much focus on meeting the primary goal of awarding a contract to an SME or VCSE even if the SME/VCSE isn't the best fit or doesn't offer the best value for money.
• Strongly agrees that extending the requirements of section 70 of the Act to publish information on (i) all payments made under public contracts and (ii) payments under notifiable below-threshold contracts, would help increase spend with SMEs and VCSEs. However, the council also notes that this could compromise the quality of the service and fail to deliver the best outcomes for the residents of the borough.
• Agrees with excluding suppliers from bidding on major contracts (over £5m per annum) if they cannot demonstrate prompt payment of invoices to their supply chains (within an average of 60 days), as this helps protect smaller businesses, especially SMEs, and builds a more resilient and stable supply chain.
• Agrees with flexibility for contracts for people-focused services to be awarded without competition, given that internal governance and justification (including benchmarking) would need to be given in these circumstances.
• Supports requiring authorities to undertake a public interest test and publish it when making sourcing decisions, as this supports the principles of increased transparency in the act.
• Disagrees with requiring authorities to set an award criteria which relates to the quality of the supplier's contribution to jobs, opportunities or skills for all public contracts over £5m and with a minimum evaluation weighting of 10%, as award criteria should be considered on a case-by-case basis and by setting this requirement it has potential to stifle other opportunities relating to social value that may be better aligned to the contract being delivered.
• Agrees that, where authorities have set social value award criteria relating to jobs or skills, mandating that they also set at least one KPI⁴ on social value delivery, and subsequently report performance against a social value KPI (published in the contract performance notice), will support transparency of progress against social value commitments.
• Agrees that requiring contracting authorities to use standard social value criteria and metrics selected from a streamlined list (to be co-designed with the public sector and suppliers) in their procurement of public contracts will help to deliver social value in a proportionate manner, as a standardised approach will help contracting authorities and suppliers create meaningful opportunities and avoid a box ticking exercise.
• Agrees that contracting authorities should be permitted to define the geographical location of where social value will be delivered, as social value should mean something to the residents of the area a contracting authority is operating in and geographical limits would support this principle.

The report pack notes that the Procurement Act 2023 and any future primary legislation, has an impact on all service areas that undertake procurement in the authority, and that officers will comply with new and existing legislation.