Procurement at DfE
Source: gov.uk (2025-04-04)

Bidding for Department for Education (DfE) contracts.

UK procurement law

We must follow UK laws that govern how we may buy goods, services and works over a specified value or ‘threshold’.

If we expect the estimated value of a contract to be over the relevant threshold, we must advertise our requirements on the Find a Tender service (https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Search).

The Cabinet Office publishes the procurement thresholds (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/54/schedule/1).

Procurement Act 2023

The Procurement Act 2023 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/54/contents/enacted) came into force on 24 February 2025 to improve the way we procure supplies, services and works for the public sector.

As part of these improvements, the Procurement Regulations 2024 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2024/692/made) were laid in Parliament in March 2024. The official record of the bill’s progress through Parliament, with all supporting documents, is available on the UK Parliamentary website (https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3159).

Further information is available on Transforming public procurement (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/transforming-public-procurement).

Contracting opportunities

The Department for Education (DfE) does not respond to unsolicited marketing. We advertise opportunities in the following ways.

Latest contracting opportunities

We, and our executive agencies, advertise all new contracting opportunities over £12,000, where appropriate, through the UK e-notification service, Find a Tender (https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Search).

We notify suppliers of these future opportunities by advertising:
- Pipeline Notices (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/54/section/93)
- Planned Procurement Notices (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/54/section/15)
- Preliminary Market Engagement Notices (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/54/section/17)
Research opportunities

DfE’s research page (https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-education/about/research) raises awareness of our current and future research interests with a programme of external research engagement.

The Central Digital Platform

All businesses in the UK are now required to register on The Central Digital Platform through Find a Tender (https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Search). They will submit and store certain core organisational information, as required by the regulations to participate in a covered procurement.

Further information is available in the Central Digital Platform - factsheet (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/procurement-act-2023-short-guides/central-digital-platform-factsheet-html).

D-U-N-S Number

All registered businesses in the UK and Ireland have a D‑U‑N‑S Number. This number provides us with valuable information about which suppliers are bidding for our contracts. Use this form to request a D-U-N-S Number (https://www.dnb.co.uk/duns-number/lookup/request-a-duns-number.html) if you do not have one.

Prompt payment policy

We follow government policy and pay all correctly submitted invoices within 5 days of receiving them.

Jaggaer: the DfE etendering portal

Jaggaer is an etendering system used by DfE to run procurements and publish opportunities and notices onto Find a Tender (https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Search). It is a password-protected online service.

As a potential supplier, you should register with Jaggaer so you can:
- receive tender correspondence
- submit tender responses
Register to use Jaggaer (https://education.app.jaggaer.com/web/login.html)

Terms and conditions for DfE contracts

To find out which terms and conditions apply when bidding for a particular DfE contract, use the advertisement and tender documentation in Find a Tender (https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Search).

We usually use the following contracts:
- Cabinet Office short form (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/short-form-terms-and-conditions)
- mid-tier (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/the-mid-tier-contract)
- model services (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/model-services-contract)
The terms and conditions are regularly updated. We may augment them with a small number of DfE-specific terms and conditions.

Where buying from a framework, we use the corresponding Crown Commercial Service (CCS) (https://www.crowncommercial.gov.uk/about-ccs) framework terms and conditions.

Purchase orders

Our purchase orders (documents that ask a company to supply goods and give details of price, method and date of payment) are subject to our terms and conditions for goods (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7f95ef40f0b62305b8809b/PF4_-_conditions_of_purchase_for_goods.pdf) (PDF, 148 KB, 8 pages).

Key performance indicators (KPIs) for government’s most important contracts

A list of central government’s most important contracts (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/key-performance-indicators-kpis-for-governments-most-important-contracts) is available. This shows up to 4 relevant key performance indicators (KPIs) and the performance of the vendor against those KPIs.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)

We aim to maximise opportunities for SMEs to participate in our procurement opportunities, by:
- encouraging competition
- reducing barriers to participation
We encourage SMEs to work with us directly or as part of the supply chain by:
- having a tender process that treats SMEs fairly
- supporting commercial relationships between DfE, SMEs and larger organisations
- monitoring our SME spend (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/central-government-spend-with-smes) and reporting to Cabinet Office for publication
Opportunities for SMEs

As well as advertising new opportunities on the Find a Tender (https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Search) service, we run innovation days where suppliers can showcase their offer. We advertise these on LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/company/uk-department-for-education) and X (https://x.com/educationgovuk).

Our SME action plan (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dfe-small-and-medium-sized-enterprise-sme-action-plan) outlines how DfE procures and works with SMEs.

For queries or feedback about the DfE SME action plan, email xxx@xxx.xx (mailto:xxx@xxx.xx).

Find out more about the relationship between the government and small businesses from the Small Business Crown Representative, Shirley Cooper OBE (https://www.gov.uk/government/people/shirley-cooper).

For queries about the work of the Cabinet Office Small Business Team, email xxx@xxx.xx (mailto:xxx@xxx.xx).

Equality and diversity in procurement

All suppliers to DfE should demonstrate a commitment to equality and diversity (https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-education/about/equality-and-diversity).

Public Sector Equality Duty guidance for suppliers

DfE is subject to the Public Sector Equality Duty. The Equality Duty is relevant where we contract services that are:
- delivered on DfE premises
- carrying out a public function
- employee facing
- public or school facing
If organisations are delivering services under any of these categories, they will be under the same Equality Duty as the department. The Public Sector Equality Duty (Equality Duty) Guidance for Suppliers to DfE (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66c896c36553ea61ea4f4389/Public_sector_equality_duty_guidance_for_suppliers_to_DfE.pdf) (PDF, 118 KB, 2 pages) has more information.

How we process your personal data

DfE’s personal information charter (https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-education/about/personal-information-charter) contains the standards you can expect from us when we ask for and hold your personal information.

Find out more in how DfE uses your personal information (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5eeb60fe86650c2d2b4b9fc1/Jaggaer_privacy-notice.pdf) (PDF, 128 KB, 2 pages).