On December 15 the Cabinet Office published a green paper on the future of procurement for public sector projects in the UK. If, like me, you were not sure of the status of a green paper, a visit to publications.parliament.uk informed me that they are discussion papers on legislation still at a formative stage. They are, potentially, followed by a white paper before a bill is discussed in Parliament.  

According to the paper, the UK spends £290 billion a year on public procurement and the government sees this expenditure as crucial to the economy’s recovery from the covid-19 pandemic. It sees the exit from the EU as “an historic opportunity to overhaul an outdated public procurement regime” and has already launched a new “Find a Tender”  service for publishing contract notices to replace the Official Journal of the European Union.

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