Do you know what public procurement can do?
The risk in asking a long-neglected function to suddenly do everything at once.
By Ben Hawes, Recurve Associate | The Alliance for Purposeful Procurement
Public procurement has long been under-appreciated and under-resourced as a function. It has also been neglected in public policy. That is changing now, but is there a risk that, having asked too little from it, people start to ask too much?
Budget 2025 committed the Government and the wider public sector to using public procurement to buy more innovative products and services, to improve outcomes for citizens and nurture businesses that offer new and better solutions. Central departments are now appointing innovation procurement champions. This is really good news. International examples show that with the right leadership and skills it is possible to bring more innovation into public service delivery, and the UK has forward-thinking supply businesses that can respond and benefit.
Then in June, the Government published new procurement guidance to do more to protect national security and secure supply chains across critical sectors.
More recently, Andy Burnham has said he wants public procurement to help UK suppliers become more stable and competitive. He also wants them to create apprenticeships and work placements for young people, while delivering “proper social value weighting”.
There are strong reasons to pursue each of these public policy goals, but can they all be pursued together? Can contracting authorities address all these priorities, and still achieve value for money through transparent and efficient procurements?
The Alliance for Purposeful Procurement is exploring these challenges. We model and promote practices that work. And we want to hear from other organisations who have expertise and ambition to give the right support to procurement decisions to meet these demands.
Unlocking essential capacity
Our strategy for working with public buyers is to start by unlocking capacity, so procurement teams consumed by transactional work can adopt operating models, tools and routes to market that create space to think.
You can’t improve resilience in the supply chains supporting critical public services if you don’t know what dependencies each contract creates. We help map and analyse these dependencies enables buyers to assess supply risks, exposure and find mitigations.
Many reports have pointed to fear of doing something new as a persistent block on procurement of innovations, shutting out better options and preventing development of better understanding and more capable procurement practices. We can shine a light on that fear and help leaders decide when it is justified and when it isn’t.
The public sector also shouldn’t embrace new technology uncritically, any more than it should get trapped in repeating past decisions. In an environment crowded with AI-labelled offerings, critical judgement is more necessary than ever.
We can help decision-makers build capabilities to reach measured decisions. With partners, we can build and model expertise and make sure it is passed on, to spread good practice so public procurement can deliver core priorities.
Build the evidence and the courage to act on it
There isn’t a simple answer for how to address all those different and important priorities at once. But there is evidence and there could be much more, and evidence can be provided to decision-makers so they can understand and use it.
We are looking for founding partners who want to collaborate to build this knowledge-base and use it to improve practice.
And we are looking for practitioners who see the value in sharing experiences and learning from others, to join our network.
These are the questions the Alliance for Purposeful Procurement exists to answer — building the evidence, the tools and the rooms to work them through.
The Alliance for Purposeful Procurement
Where we take these questions next. Three ways in.
01 — Organisations
Become a founding partner
Help shape and resource the agenda from the front of the coalition. We're talking to a small number of organisations.
Start the conversation →02 — Practitioners
Join the network
For people doing this work day to day. Share experience, learn from others, stay close to the thinking. Free.
Join the network →03 — Evidence
Read the evidence
The diagnosis behind it all: State of Procurement 2026, the report that started the Alliance.
Read the report →