The UK government has acted swiftly to implement EU Directive 2014/24/EU on the regulation of public procurement into national law in the form of the new Public Contracts Regulations 2015.  The Regulations, which are published online at www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2015/102/contents/made, will come into force on 26 February 2015.  

The Regulations implement the Directive but also include a number of new reforms intended to make public procurement more accessible to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and to support economic growth.  These reforms include specific rules regarding the publication of and qualification for sub-threshold procurements, specific 30-day payment obligations and obligations to promptly publish the contracts awarded. 

The UK government  acted swiftly to bring the Regulations into effect even though the Directive did not need to be implemented before 2016 because it believes that they will help to stimulate the UK economy, particularly for SMEs.  It therefore started work on the transposition in July 2013 before the Directive had been formally adopted or published in March 2014.  The work to transpose the Directive included informal consultations with a wide range of stakeholders, including central government departments, local government, industry, trade associations and law and consulting firms.

The UK government has also produced initial guidance in the form of a Training Handbook, which can be found at https://www.gov.uk/transposing-eu-procurement-directives.  It is intended that further guidance will be produced on a range of further topics.