PPN 03/23: An essential guide to changes

Background

On the 9th March, the Cabinet Office published updates to its recommended selection questionnaire and statutory guidance for public bodies conducting over threshold procurements. The new PPN replaced the old PPN 08/16 and required public bodies who were in scope, to action changes to the standardised selection questionnaire used to determine suitability to tender and those changes had to be implemented by the 01 April.

The changes were significant and indicative of government guidance shifting towards the transition to the new regulations before the same have been ratified, in preparation for the changes to come. However, it appears now that the Cabinet Office has further updated the 03/23 PPN with additional changes, including some amendments to the new SQ that may not be apparent on first reading, as the update at the time of writing, does not seem to have registered on the .gov page audit trail.

Changes

YPO’s Contracts Team have compared the original March version and April update to PPN 03/23, to summarise the changes as follows:

• Time for implementing the new SQ has been extended from the 01 April to 01 June 2023 but can be used immediately if preferred. This was a welcome amendment as the time for implementation was initially very short which will give some relief to organisations struggling to keep to the requested timelines.
• The guidance on the extent of the changes has itself been amended to remove references to formatting and increasing scope to include paragraphs 43 and 44 of Annex A.
• The wording around amending Part 3 has been changed from a positive affirmation that the part can be changed, to one indicating that it cannot without first reporting deviations to the Cabinet Office. This does not create an active change but does change the tone of the rights to amend Part 3 of the SQ from acceptable to only where required to ensure standardisation across the public sector.
• For SQ’s used in Works contracts, references to use of the Common Assessment Standard (CAS) have been extended to include PAS91 (the BSI’s prequalification questionnaire) as well, giving some flexibility as to the selection criteria that can be used for works contracts.
• A specific exclusion from following the guidance is added at para 35 for the procurement of health care services as defined by the NHS Procurement Regulations 2013. This exclusion will bring the guidance in line with forward plans to exclude health care from the wider procurement regulations as proposed in the current bill.
• Two new paragraphs have been added at 79 and 80 primarily but not seemingly exclusively for the attention of central government authorities, which explain that question 7.11 of the SQ can be used where it is relevant, proportionate and non-discriminatory to do so. Where used, the authority must also apply an appropriate selection criteria methodology to assess compliance with the same.
• Annex B, the standard selection questions have had minor changes that will require attention and including on future SQ’s. For Central Government this also includes the relocation of the modern slavery question to the end of the SQ.
• Annex C, the single procurement document element of the SQ has similarly undergone minor amendments such as removal of references to “member states” and additional clarification on key reference points. Again, like Annex B, there are more significant amendments for central government elements with inclusion of a section on supplier past performance at 7.10 that was not present in the March update and a re-writing of the modern slavery question at the new 7.11.
• Finally, Annex D, the exclusion ground descriptions have had a few minor changes to clarify terms around misrepresentation.

Overall, the changes to PPN 03/23 are not hugely significant in scope but it is important that public bodies follow the guidance issued by the Cabinet Office and the amendments come just over a month after the introduction of the new SQ at the beginning of march. This means many authorities may fail to notice the additional changes.

As such now is a good time to revisit the SQ and ensure those minor changes are captured on your template documents. Happy drafting!