Regulated procurement | UK Regulatory Outlook July 2026

PPN 022 updated to require reporting of steel origin in contract notices 

The Cabinet Office has updated Procurement Policy Note 022 (PPN 022) to introduce a new transparency requirement for steel procurements commencing from 1 October 2026. Central government departments, their executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies are in-scope and must confirm in a contract details notice whether UK-produced steel is to be used by the prime contractor or within the supply chain. 

The requirement applies to procurements valued at £10 million or more, or where more than 500 tonnes of steel are anticipated. Four standardised wording tags record whether steel origin is UK, non-UK, mixed or not yet known. Where non-UK steel is selected, where there is a combination of UK and non-UK steel, or where origin is not yet known, a rationale must be provided alongside the relevant tag. Acceptable reasons include cost, quality, availability, lead time and embodied carbon. The updated guidance makes clear that PPN 022 does not mandate the use of UK-produced steel. 

Prime contractors on government contracts will find that as the steel origin data requirements cascade through their contracts and subcontracts that they will need to record and make available origin information for reporting purposes. 

Cabinet Office publishes Investigation process guide for procurement compliance service 

The Cabinet Office has added a new investigation process guide to its procurement compliance and oversight guidance, setting out how the Procurement Compliance Service will investigate potential non-compliance with the Procurement Act 2023. 

The guide explains that the service focuses on systemic and institutional breaches affecting multiple contracting authorities or involving repeated failures by a single authority, rather than complaints about individual procurements. It outlines the service's statutory and non-statutory powers, its risk-based triage process, investigation stages, reporting arrangements and the circumstances in which findings may be published on gov.uk. It also clarifies referral arrangements and the role of contracting authorities during investigations. 

Regulations defer move away from Contracts Finder to May 2027 

The Procurement (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2026 came into force on 1 July and has deferred by seven months the date on which contracting authorities will be required to stop publishing below-threshold contract notices on Contracts Finder. The change, originally due to take effect on 1 October this year, will now apply from 1 May 2027, with publication transferring to the Find a Tender central digital platform.