The contract lifecycle doesn't end at award

Most of the obligations under the Procurement Act 2023 don’t land at the point you sign a contract, they land afterwards, and they keep landing throughout the life of that contract. KPI publication, annual performance assessment, termination notices, renewal deadlines: miss one and you’re looking at a compliance gap your board or auditor will ask about. This guide maps the full contract lifecycle against what the Act and the National Procurement Policy Statement actually require at each stage, so you know what’s coming before it’s due.

The Procurement Act 2023 has moved the compliance risk in contract management from award day to every day after it, and most organisations are still set up to manage the moment they’d sign, not the years that follow.

Contract management across the public sector has changed more in the last two years than in the previous two decades. The Procurement Act 2023 and the National Procurement Policy Statement don’t just set out how you get to contract award, they set out what has to happen afterwards: KPIs published before you even sign, performance assessed and published at least annually, and a termination notice due within 30 days of a contract ending, including simply reaching its natural expiry. For contracting authorities across local government, education, healthcare, central government, blue light, defence, and the charity sector, that shift creates both opportunity and risk.

The costliest gaps don’t tend to show up at the point of award. They show up months or years later, when a KPI that was never properly recorded can’t be reported on, when a contract quietly expires without the termination notice that’s now a legal requirement, or when a renewal window is missed and a rushed, non-compliant retender is the only option left. None of these are unusual failures. They’re the predictable result of treating contract management as an administrative afterthought rather than a set of obligations that start the moment you define what you need and don’t stop until the contract ends.

This guide maps the full contract lifecycle, stage by stage, against what the Act and the NPPS actually require at each point, and where support is available if you need it. Whether you’re building your organisation’s response to the Act from scratch or checking that your existing approach holds up, this is a practical, non-technical reference you can keep coming back to.

What this guide covers

This guide maps five stages of the contract lifecycle against the legal requirements attached to each one, and where support is available at each point:

Strategy and needs assessment: what the National Procurement Policy Statement expects before you’ve even gone to market, including commercial best practice and value for money decisions made from the outset.
Market engagement and procurement: the KPI publication threshold that applies before award for higher-value contracts, and what a compliant route to market needs to demonstrate.
Contract award and mobilisation: the contract details notice requirement, and how KPIs and supplier obligations need to be formally recorded from day one, not retrofitted later.
Active contract management: the annual supplier performance assessment and publication requirement, and when a contract performance notice is required if obligations aren’t being met.
Renewal, extension, or retender: the contract termination notice deadline that applies within 30 days of any termination, including natural expiry, and why missed renewal windows are one of the most common causes of rushed, non-compliant retendering.

Why this matters now

The Procurement Act 2023 puts significantly more weight on what happens after a contract is signed than previous legislation did. For contracts over £5 million, at least three KPIs need to be set and published before award, and supplier performance against them needs to be assessed and published at least annually after that. If a contract is terminated for any reason, including simply reaching its natural end, a termination notice is due within 30 days. None of these obligations are optional, and none of them go away just because your organisation’s procurement team is small or your systems weren’t built with this in mind. This guide sets it out stage by stage, so you can see exactly what’s required and when, rather than discovering a gap when a report, an audit, or a challenge forces the question.

Who this guide is for

Procurement and contract management leads who want a clear, practical map of what the Procurement Act 2023 and the NPPS require at every stage of a contract, not just at the point of award.

Teams still working through their transition from PCR 2015 to the Procurement Act 2023, who need straightforward guidance on what’s actually changed in practice, rather than a purely legal explanation of the legislation.

Anyone responsible for KPI reporting, supplier performance, or contract renewal who wants to make sure their evidence and processes would hold up if a board, a regulator, or an auditor asked to see them.

This guide applies to contracting authorities in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, with transferred Northern Ireland authorities noted where their obligations vary. Scotland operates under separate procurement legislation, so if your organisation is based there, this particular guide won’t map directly to your obligations, though our team can point you towards the right information if you get in touch.

Frequently asked questions

We’re still transitioning from PCR 2015 to the Procurement Act 2023. Is this guide still relevant to us?

Yes, and this is exactly the situation the guide is written for. A lot of organisations are still working through what’s changed in practice, particularly around the obligations that apply after contract award, which is where this guide focuses. Rather than explaining the legislation itself in legal terms, it sets out what you need to do differently at each stage of the contract lifecycle compared to how contracts were typically managed under PCR 2015, including new publication requirements and notice deadlines that didn’t exist before. If you’re still building your organisation’s internal response to the Act, this is a practical starting point for identifying the gaps in your current process before they turn into compliance issues.

Some of what’s mentioned, like the KPI publication requirement, only applies above £5 million. Does the rest of the guide still matter if our contracts are smaller than that?

Yes. The £5 million threshold applies specifically to the statutory requirement to set and publish at least three KPIs before award, but the wider lifecycle obligations mapped in this guide aren’t limited to higher-value contracts. The contract details notice, the expectation that KPIs and supplier obligations are documented with named ownership, the annual assessment of supplier performance, and the 30-day termination notice requirement all apply regardless of contract value. What tends to change below £5 million is the formality and scale of what’s expected, not whether the obligation exists at all. In practice, this means smaller contracts still need a genuine contract management approach, they’re just less likely to trigger the specific statutory KPI publication duty. The guide is written to help you see which obligations are value-dependent and which apply across the board, so you’re not assuming a smaller contract means fewer things to get right.