When Legislation Becomes Behaviour: Procurement’s Second Year in Wales

A year ago, writing ahead of Procurex Wales, I described the Procurement Act 2023 as a platform for change rather than an end in itself – legislation that creates the opportunity for better procurement, but cannot deliver it alone. Twelve months on, with the Act now well into its second year and running alongside the Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Act, that claim is being properly tested. This is the year we find out whether new rules are actually changing old habits.

Last year's headline was visibility of what was coming: pipeline notices giving suppliers advance sight of opportunities, and a formal push towards early market engagement. That was always the easier half of transparency to deliver – it asks buyers to publish more, earlier. The harder half is now arriving. Payment compliance notices and, from the spring, full publication of contract performance information mean transparency no longer stops at the award.

For the first time, how a contract is actually performing – and how promptly a public body is paying its supply chain – becomes visible while the contract is live, not just in retrospect. That is a meaningful shift in accountability, and one that will take some getting used to on both sides of the table.

Prompt payment sits at the heart of that shift. Cash flow remains the single biggest pressure point for smaller suppliers working beneath a prime contractor, and it has taken more than good intentions to move the dial. Six-monthly payment reporting is the mechanism now catching up with the ambition, turning a long-standing complaint into a metric that buyers and primes alike have to answer for.

The same is true of SME and social enterprise participation more broadly – targets that read as aspirational a year ago are now attached to real reporting cycles, with the first meaningful data starting to land.

Social value is following the same path, and in Wales it has particular force. The Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Act, together with the Well-being of Future Generations Act, gives Welsh contracting authorities a domestic mandate that goes beyond the UK-wide legislation – community wealth building, local supply chains and Welsh-based delivery are no longer just points scored at the bid stage.

Across Wales's £5.5 billion of council spend alone, the question is shifting from “what did you promise” to “what have you delivered,” with social value increasingly written in as a live contract KPI rather than a one-off assessment. That is a genuine evolution, even if it falls short of the revolution some predicted.

None of this is happening in a vacuum. Procurement teams across Wales are absorbing two major pieces of legislation at once, often without a corresponding increase in capacity, and the profession's ability to keep pace deserves as much attention as the legislation itself.

At the same time, a quieter shift is under way in how procurement decisions get made in the first place, as artificial intelligence starts to find genuine, if still early, use in market analysis and evaluation support. Neither of these stories will resolve this year, but both will shape how the Acts' promise translates into everyday practice.

With public procurement in Wales worth around £11 billion annually, getting this right matters well beyond the procurement profession itself. That is precisely why gatherings like Procurex Wales earn their place in the calendar. Bringing buyers, suppliers and policymakers into the same room, to compare notes on what is working and what still needs pressure, is how legislation on paper becomes changed behaviour in practice.

Procurex Wales will return on Wednesday 11 November 2026 at the Utilita Arena, Cardiff. For more details and to register, visit: https://procurexwales.co.uk/