Unlocking Opportunity: What the 2023 Procurement Act Means for Manchester’s Social Economy

The 2023 Procurement Act came into effect on February 24^th, 2025, bringing with it changes to legislation and best practices for local authorities’ contracting procedures. The new act emphasises the consideration of ‘public benefit’ when assessing contract tenders, elevating the opportunity for social enterprises to supply goods and services to government bodies. With the goal of removing barriers to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and social enterprises, the new Procurement Act implements three key changes: 

Implications for Procurement 

Prioritising the importance of public benefit within government contracts represents an important shift towards a mission-driven approach to procurement practices. This shift means that contracting authorities must consider maximising public benefit when assessing tenders, which includes social, environmental, and economic benefits. While the legislation does not explicitly cite social value, instead relying on a broad definition provided under public benefit, the approach creates a broad interpretation of social and economic priorities that fit into the context-specific agenda objectives of local authorities and commissioners. The range of public benefits local authorities assess when considering tenders includes the local job creation and apprenticeship opportunities, sustainability and environmental impacts, supplier diversity, and SME participation when considering tenders.  

Accompanying the emphasis and considerations of public benefit, the 2023 Procurement Act also takes steps to improve transparency and accountability in public sector procurement. To address the longstanding challenge of tracking the delivery of social value impacts, the act calls for commissioning authorities to publish key performance indicators (KPIs) annually for all contracts above £5 million. These include social value KPIs to assess suppliers’ delivery of services and their maximised public benefit impact.  

The Opportunity for Manchester Social Enterprises 

As part of the newfound focus on public benefit within procurement practices, the national government released guidance as part of the National Procurement Policy Statement detailing the importance of social value, long-term funding commitments, and planned engagement with SMEs and social enterprises. The statement highlights that social enterprises “are more likely to generate diverse and thriving local economies, creating jobs and economic growth.” Accordingly, Manchester City Council has committed to ensuring that tenders are accessible to local social enterprises and that social value is embedded across the design, sourcing, and evaluation stages.  

To facilitate the inclusion of SMEs and social enterprises, which were previously left out of the tender process, the procurement act calls on contracting authorities to engage with bidders through every stage of the tender life cycle. As part of the legislation enabling authorities to ensure that delivery commitments are met, government departments are empowered to ask for more evidence and reporting from suppliers regarding their social value objectives. In the past, aligning statutory body objectives with the social value delivered by social enterprises was ad hoc; as such, the procurement act calls for contracting authorities to promote early market engagement with suppliers. This includes attending meet the buyer events to publicise tenders and clarify expectations, providing opportunities for suppliers to request additional information, and assessing market capacity and barriers before drafting tenders. The Manchester Social Economy Alliance aspires to support Manchester City Council and other regional public sector commissioners in connecting with, properly supporting, engaging with, and commissioning from Manchester’s wealth of social value-led businesses and VCSE organisations.  

Shortcomings and Criticisms 

Above all, the ability of the 2023 Procurement Act to succeed at commissioning social enterprises and integrating social value considerations within tenders will depend on the proactive approaches of local contracting authorities. This includes creating clear guidance about expectations for procurement bids that set realistic social value targets while ensuring transparent decision-making and feedback. The vagueness of maximising public benefit creates undue uncertainty around assessment criteria and the use of qualitative measures to measure the social value impacts brought by social enterprises. While the Procurement Act acknowledges the need to build the commercial capacity and standards for organisations to manage and deliver social value objectives, there is little mention of resource allocation for training frameworks, best practices, and expert consultations for SMEs and social enterprises to develop these capabilities.  

Advice and Resources  

The Social Value Portal details a range of advice for social enterprises to take advantage of the changes created by the 2023 Procurement Act. Chief among these is staying up to date with local authorities’ upcoming tenders and attending meet the commissioner events to identify core social value objectives of these government departments. Importantly, the MSEA is hosting an event and commissioner panel that will allow you to meet several local Manchester commissioners, with more details included in the newsletter.  

To navigate the legislative changes and updated platforms, please find a range of resources listed below: