month in review

UK public procurement in December 2023

6,400 UK public sector tenders and contract awards were published in December 2023 by 1,422 buying organisations, 12% down on November 2023. 10.3% of those with a recorded route to market were awarded directly, without competition.

notices

6,400

buyers

1,422

named a winner

4,957

awarded directly

10.3%

median value

£110,000

most active buyers

who won most

biggest changes on November 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	November 2023	December 2023	change
FCDO Services	245	35	-210
Ministry of Justice	35	117	+82
Newcastle University	2	55	+53
Department for Education	24	69	+45
London Borough of Enfield	48	15	-33
North Yorkshire Council	13	46	+33
Surrey County Council	101	69	-32
Natural England	53	22	-31
University of Plymouth	29	1	-28
The University of Birmingham	42	15	-27

what was bought

the biggest awarded contracts of December 2023

contract	buyer	won by	value
Leisure Development Partner for the UK Leisure Framework 2022-2026	Denbighshire Leisure Ltd	Alliance Leisure Services ltd	£4,000,000,000
Print and Digital Commmunications	The Minister for the Cabinet Office acting through Crown Commercial Service	named in the notice	£1,700,000,000
OPR004 Integrated Residential and Nursing 2025	Essex County Council	Abbot Care Centre Limited +201	£1,000,000,000
Rainbow Customer Contact and Core Banking - LOT 1 - Customer Contact Centre and Operations	NS&I	Sopra Steria	£756,100,000
Financing of Rolling Stock	London North Eastern Railway Limited	named in the notice	£500,000,000
Consolidated ERP Solution: Unity Programme - Technology (including ERP) & Technical Delivery Partner	H M Revenue & Customs	Concur Holdings (Netherlands) B.V.	£500,000,000
Initial In Service Support Contract Interim 155 (Archer)	Ministry of Defence	BAE Systems Bofors AB	£498,900,000
EdIS-22-001 Strategic Partner Services and School Management System (SMS) Solution	Education Authority	FUJITSU SERVICES LTD	£485,000,000
Federated Data Platform and Associated Services	NHS England	PALANTIR TECHNOLOGIES UK, LTD.	£480,000,000
Electronic Monitoring Field and Monitoring Service (FMS)	Ministry of Justice	Serco Corporate Services Ltd	£329,900,000

Contracts published in December 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 December 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.