Selling to the council

The council spends over £300 million every year on a wide range of goods, works and services to help us provide services to the people of Hackney.

It is our policy to ensure procurement is managed at the most appropriate level in the organisation, to ensure specifications are developed by the people closest to the service user and that contracts are only awarded to providers who have been sourced and selected through a sound and robust process in accordance with relevant legislation. Read our procurement strategy.

The Procurement Act 2023

The laws that govern public procurement are changing and aim to improve the way that public procurement is regulated to increase social, environmental and economic benefits and to save taxpayer money.

The Procurement Act will replace the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. It will come into force on 24 February 2025, after the go-live date was changed from October 2024.

Preparing for the Procurement Act

To prepare for the new Procurement Act the Government Commercial Function has produced the Transforming Public Procurement Knowledge Drops. These are short video guides for suppliers, including SME that will give a high level overview of the new Procurement Act.

Access the Knowledge Drops, on GOV.UK – Public Procurement Knowledge Drops.

The Cabinet Office has also published a guide, read ”The Procurement Act 2023: A short guide for suppliers” on GOV.UK.

For information on the Central Digital Platform, view the Central Digital Platform factsheet (PDF 4.8mb).

Webinars for suppliers

The Cabinet Office is hosting 2 webinars to help suppliers prepare. These will cover key changes and how the central digital platform works (with a live demo). There will also be an opportunity to ask questions on your own preparations for go-live. Recordings of the sessions will be available on GOV.UK – Information and guidance for suppliers for those who cannot attend.

Both sessions will be the same, so you only need to register for one:

• register on eventbrite for Thursday 23 January 2025 (10.30am to 11.30am)
• register on eventbrite for Friday 24 January 2025 (11am to 12pm)

Tender opportunities and contracts

Access to free training for businesses on sustainability, including support for reducing carbon emissions, is available from Better Futures+. This training would be especially beneficial to SMEs to develop and implement net zero delivery plans.

View our current tender opportunities.

Work with the Council

Find out about working with the Council, including: what we buy, our commitment to suppliers, our suppliers and partners and our standard documents and terms and conditions. You can also find out about how you can help us pay you on time.

SMEs (Small to medium sized enterprises)

The government has recently published a SME Selling to Government guide providing SMEs with essential information on public sector procurement. Whether you’re seeking top tips for tendering or answers on threshold contracts, this is the one-stop guide for SMEs interested in bidding for government contracts.

Council purchasing and policies and standards

Find out about our policies and standards regarding health and safety, environmental issues, promoting diversity and probity and ethics.

Procurement frequently asked questions

Find the answers to frequently asked questions such as where tenders are advertised, how to improve your chances of tendering successfully and the community right to bid.

Procurement jargon buster

The jargon buster will help you identify some of the more commonly used words, acronyms and phrases.

The procurement pipeline

The procurement pipeline is published each month which reflects the progress of high and medium risk projects being undertaken by the authority.

See procurement pipeline (google sheet).

Our procurement strategy

Our procurement strategy sets out the key proposals for continued development of  Hackney’s procurement work. This comprises of our Sustainable Procurement Strategy 2018-2022 and a set of overarching principles for procurement.