Brexit: The future of public sector procurement

We believe the outcome of the referendum will have no short term impact on the utility, legality or the compliance associated with the use of frameworks.

EU procurement legislation is already embedded in UK law. The Public Contract Regulations 2015 and the Public Contracts Scotland Regulations came into effect from February 2015 and April 2016 respectively. These Regulations adopted the principles of the EU Directive and therefore we do not predict any change to the way in which goods, services and works are procured by public bodies in the United Kingdom in the short term.

The UK Government and industry stakeholders, SCAPE included, played a significant role in designing and amending the EU’s procurement directives in recent years to ensure they meet British interests, such as providing additional opportunities for SMEs.

A change in our UK procurement law will only be affected if Westminster and Scottish Parliament choose to do so. Altering UK legislation would be a complex and time consuming task due to the number of public sector and industry bodies, with which consultation would be required.

However, we expect any future revisions to follow a similar structure, as existing directives largely meet UK requirements.