month in review

UK public procurement in August 2023

8,314 UK public sector tenders and contract awards were published in August 2023 by 1,579 buying organisations, 4% up on July 2023. 9.7% of those with a recorded route to market were awarded directly, without competition.

notices

8,314

buyers

1,579

named a winner

6,486

awarded directly

9.7%

median value

£100,000

most active buyers

who won most

biggest changes on July 2023

Change in the number of notices published, against the month before. Measured as an absolute change and shown only where it is at least ten notices — a buyer going from one notice to four is a 300% rise and means nothing.

buyer	July 2023	August 2023	change
Suffolk County Council	91	332	+241
Surrey County Council	67	262	+195
West Northamptonshire Council	151	47	-104
Leicester City Council	36	136	+100
Health Education England	193	98	-95
Nottingham City Council	14	91	+77
Cumbria County Council	58	0	-58
London Borough of Haringey	116	60	-56
Cumberland Council	119	79	-40
Midlands and Lancashire Commissioning Support Unit	76	37	-39

what was bought

the biggest awarded contracts of August 2023

contract	buyer	won by	value
BSH/HRA/ SEND Capital Throgmorton	Bristol City Council	7 Formation Limited +91	£1,000,000,000
Y23065 Software Products and Associated Services	Kent County Council (T/A Procurement Services)	Academia Limited +23	£800,000,000
Integrated Sexual Health Service within Warwickshire and Coventry	Warwickshire County Council	HCRG Care Services Limited	£779,266,260
CLINICAL MANAGED SERVICES INCLUDING MANAGED MAINTENANCE SERVICES (SBS10251)	NHS Shared Business Services	Abbott Laboratories Limited +40	£725,000,000
Internal alteration and fit out of an existing retail unit - AWARD	The Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust	O & P Construction Services Ltd	£600,000,000
NHS National Generic Pharmaceuticals Wave 14b	ATAMIS LTD	Accord-UK Ltd +98	£428,226,984
Refuse Derived Fuel and Energy Recovery Feedstock	West Sussex County Council	W SUSSEX BRITANNIACREST SENECA PSHIP LTD	£395,600,000
Planned Internal and External Refurbishment Works Programme	Peabody Trust	Axis Europe PLC +5	£340,000,000
Framework for Adults 18+ in MH&LD Care Homes/and with Nursing	NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership-Procurement Services (hosted by Velindre University NHS Trust)	Accomplish Group +70	£338,565,700
Managed Laboratory Service within NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde	Greater Glasgow Health Board commonly known as NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde	Abbott Diagnostics	£320,573,367

Contracts published in August 2023 that name a winning supplier, ranked by the value the buyer published, excluding those flagged as a maximum rather than a price. Figures are as published; gvtcx does not adjust them. A large contract is often a multi-year framework, so the value is what may be spent over its whole life — and where several suppliers share one framework, each is shown against the framework's full value rather than its own share.

how this was counted

Notices published in August 2023 across Contracts Finder, Find a Tender, Public Contracts Scotland and Sell2Wales, under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Counts are of contracting processes, not published notices: a tender and its award notice are one contract and are counted once.

There is no total value on this page, deliberately. Published values repeat a framework's entire ceiling against every supplier on it, so a month containing one large framework would read as a spending spike that never happened. The median excludes anything flagged as a ceiling, and the reasoning is set out in full here. Where a total IS defensible — contracts awarded to a single supplier, with no framework — it is on the direct awards page.

A month stays open to revision: publishers backdate, so figures for the current month and the one before it may still move.