Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether he has made an assessment of the potential barriers to minority ethnic owned businesses accessing Government contracts.

UK public procurement policy is to award contracts on the basis of value for money, which means the optimum combination of cost and quality over the lifetime of the project. Public sector procurers are required to assess value for money from the perspective of the contracting authority, using criteria linked to the subject matter of the contract, including compliance with the published specification.

A Social Value model launched on 1 January 2021 (PPN 06/20), which is applicable to central Government departments, requires contracts to be assessed on a range of priority outcomes, where it is relevant and proportionate to do so, including improving accessibility to government contracts by a range of types of organisations, including minority ethnic owned businesses. This new approach will mean more opportunities for SMEs and social enterprises to win Government contracts by demonstrating the full extent of the value they would generate

As we look towards the future, we now have an opportunity to develop and implement a new procurement regime. The Procurement Bill contains proposals to further simplify the procurement process and make it easier for all companies to bid. The changes that are proposed are designed to benefit businesses of all sizes throughout the whole economy, including ethnic minority businesses; this includes measures that will reduce barriers to entry including establishing a single transparency platform so that bidders only have to submit their core credentials once, and making reforms to procurement frameworks so that suppliers are not locked out.