The National Procurement Policy Statement, explained

Public procurement is not run in a vacuum. Alongside the law that sets the rules of the process sits a short document that tells contracting authorities what the government of the day wants that process to achieve. That document is the National Procurement Policy Statement, usually shortened to the NPPS. If you buy for a public body, it is one of the few pieces of policy you are legally obliged to take into account every time you run a procurement.

This guide explains what the NPPS is, where its legal force comes from, what the current statement asks of buyers, and what it means in practice on both sides of a tender. One thing to hold onto throughout: the mechanism is durable, but the content is not. The Procurement Act 2023 permanently requires an NPPS to exist and to be considered; the priorities inside it change with the government that publishes them. Always read the current statement rather than an older summary.

What the NPPS is

The NPPS is a statement of the government's strategic priorities for public procurement. It is deliberately short, high-level and readable: it is not a rulebook, a procedure or a set of clauses. Instead it sets out the outcomes ministers expect the public sector to pursue through the hundreds of billions of pounds it spends with suppliers each year, and it signals how contracting authorities are expected to weigh those outcomes when they design and run a procurement.

It sits above the individual contract. A tender for grounds maintenance and a tender for a national IT system are governed by the same NPPS, even though almost nothing else about them is alike. The statement gives buyers a common set of aims to work towards and gives suppliers a reasonable idea of what buyers across the public sector will value.

Where its legal force comes from

The NPPS is a creature of the Procurement Act 2023, the regime that took effect on 24 February 2025 and replaced the older EU-derived rules for new procurements in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Scotland runs its own separate procurement regime and its own equivalent policy, so the NPPS described here does not bind Scottish authorities.

The Act gives the government the power to publish an NPPS and gives the statement its teeth through section 13, which requires that "a contracting authority must have regard to the national procurement policy statement" when exercising its procurement functions. That is the durable part. Whatever the politics of the moment, the Act obliges the government to set out priorities and obliges buyers to consider them. Section 13 also carves out some exceptions, for example private utilities and certain kinds of arrangement, so a small number of bodies fall outside the duty.

Two points follow from this design. First, "have regard to" is a genuine legal duty, not a suggestion, and it is discussed in more detail below. Second, because a new government can publish a new statement, the priorities can be rewritten without touching the Act itself. The current statement is the one to work from, and it will not be the last.

The current strategic priorities

The statement in force was published in February 2025 and took effect on 24 February 2025. It frames everything around value for money, and then sets out three ways contracting authorities are expected to deliver it:

• Driving economic growth and strengthening supply chains. Giving small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and voluntary, community and social enterprises (VCSEs) a fair chance at public contracts, creating high-quality jobs and championing innovation.
• Delivering social and economic value that supports the government's missions. This includes working in partnership across organisational boundaries where that helps, so procurement contributes to wider goals rather than being treated as a purely transactional exercise.
• Ensuring the right commercial capability and standards. Making sure authorities have the skills to procure and manage contracts effectively, and to collaborate with other authorities to secure best value.

Sitting underneath the growth priority is a concrete, measurable obligation. Under the accompanying policy note, central government departments, including their executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies, must set a three-year target for direct spend with SMEs from 1 April 2025, set a target for direct spend with VCSEs to be in place by 1 April 2026, and report progress against both every year. That is the sharpest edge of the current statement: for the bodies in scope, the ambition to open up public spending to smaller and social-sector suppliers now comes with numbers attached.

A note of caution on all of the above: this is the content of the current statement, and content is exactly what changes. Treat the value-for-money framing, the three priorities and the spend targets as today's answer, not a permanent one.

What "have regard" actually requires of buyers

"Have regard to" is well-understood in administrative law, and it is worth being precise about it. It does not mean you must follow the statement to the letter, and it does not turn every priority into a pass or fail test. It means you must genuinely and consciously take the statement into account, give its priorities real weight, and be able to show that you did. If you decide a priority does not fit a particular procurement, you can depart from it, but the decision has to be reasoned rather than accidental.

In practice, for a buyer, that means:

• Read the current statement before you design the procurement, not after. The priorities should shape your strategy, your specification and your evaluation, not be bolted on at the end.
• Translate priorities into the parts of the process that carry weight. Social value and support for SMEs only influence an outcome if they appear in the specification and the award criteria and are actually scored. A priority mentioned in the covering email but absent from the evaluation model changes nothing.
• Keep a short written record. Note how you considered the statement and why you made the choices you did. If a decision is ever challenged, the ability to show you had regard to the NPPS is your protection.
• Design for proportionality. Having regard to the SME priority does not mean loading every tender with requirements only large firms can meet. Often it points the other way: simpler questionnaires, proportionate insurance and turnover requirements, and lot structures that a smaller supplier can realistically bid for.

What it means for suppliers

Suppliers have no duty under the NPPS, but it tells them a great deal about how buyers are being steered, and a well-run bid uses that.

• Expect social and economic value to carry marks. Awards under the Act are made to the Most Advantageous Tender, which gives buyers explicit room to weigh quality and wider value rather than lowest price alone. The NPPS reinforces that direction, so a credible, specific and locally relevant social value offer is worth real effort.
• SMEs and social enterprises are being actively courted. If you are a smaller supplier, the current priorities and the central-government spend targets are working in your favour. Highlight your status where a tender asks, and do not assume the field is closed to you.
• Read priorities as signals, not guarantees. The statement shapes intent across the public sector, but each individual tender is still won on its published criteria. Answer the question in front of you, and use the NPPS to understand the thinking behind it.

Keeping this useful as the statement changes

The single most important habit, for buyers and suppliers alike, is to check the version. Because a new government can issue a new NPPS at any time, an out-of-date summary is worse than none: it can send you chasing priorities that have quietly been dropped or replaced.

Before you rely on any description of the priorities, confirm the current statement on GOV.UK and note its date. Keep the durable and the changeable separate in your own mind: the Procurement Act 2023 and its section 13 duty to have regard are the fixed frame, while the specific priorities, targets and emphasis are the movable content within it. Build your procurement strategy on the frame, populate it from the current statement, and you will stay compliant and current whichever way the policy turns next.