CMA places public procurement at the centre of its growth agenda

On 8 September 2026, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published two policy papers setting out its vision for a more strategic and pro-competitive approach to public procurement. The first, Public Procurement in the National Interest: Reflections from the CMA, argues that the Government’s annual public procurement spend of approximately £400 billion is not being used as effectively as it could be to promote growth, innovation, resilience and wider industrial policy objectives. The second, Rigged Bids, Real Costs: A Case for Urgent Action on Bid Rigging in UK Public Procurement, calls for greater use of procurement data to detect possible collusion. It estimates that bid rigging could be costing UK taxpayers between £1 billion and £3.5 billion annually.

The publications form part of the CMA's wider work on industrial strategy, including its recent work on scale-ups, cloud computing, civil engineering and defence. Together, the papers provide a clear indication of the CMA's policy priorities and reflect its growing view that public procurement is a strategic tool for supporting growth, innovation, resilience and industrial policy objectives. As such, they have potentially significant implications for public authorities, suppliers and businesses participating in public tenders.

Public procurement as a strategic policy tool

The first paper identifies a consistent theme running through the CMA's recent industrial strategy work: procurement decisions affect which businesses grow, which technologies succeed, where investment is made and how markets develop. The CMA concludes that public procurement is a powerful strategic capability, but one that the UK is not deploying as effectively as it could.

The CMA identifies five key issues and corresponding recommendations:

Rigged bids, real costs

The second paper focuses on bid rigging, which occurs where suppliers collude during a procurement process, creating the appearance of competition while pre-determining the outcome. Such conduct can increase prices, reduce quality and weaken incentives to innovate.

The CMA notes that many public procurement markets display recognised risk factors for collusion, including repeated interactions between suppliers, predictable demand, barriers to entry and recurring competitions. It also highlights its recent enforcement record, having concluded seven bid-rigging cases since 2014 that resulted in fines of more than £129 million, director disqualifications and criminal sanctions. More than half of those cases involved public procurement.

A key theme of the paper is the increasing potential for data-led detection of bid rigging. The CMA has developed its own screening tool, the Bid Rigging Intelligence Tool (BRIT), and has already used it in pilot projects with Government departments to identify suspicious bidding patterns. Competition authorities in several other jurisdictions are also using procurement screening tools, and several countries now require the collection and retention of procurement data, including information on unsuccessful bids, to support bid-rigging detection.

However, the CMA considers that its ability to screen procurement activity systematically is constrained by incomplete and fragmented data, particularly the lack of centrally collected information on unsuccessful bids. Therefore, it recommends:

• making the prevention, detection and deterrence of bid rigging an explicit public procurement priority;
• establishing cross-public sector screening capability, supported by the collection and retention of bid-level information in a machine-readable format; and
• transparently evaluating implementation, including coverage, analytical leads, referrals, investigations and demonstrable savings.

What should I do?

Public authorities and procuring bodies

Public authorities should consider how their procurement strategies can support the Government’s wider policy objectives such as growth, innovation and resilience, while remaining effective and proportionate. They should also consider if existing processes create unintended barriers for innovative suppliers and new entrants. Finally, they should monitor developments in relation to bid-rigging detection and procurement data collection.

Suppliers and contractors

Businesses that participate in public procurement should determine whether the CMA's proposals could create new opportunities to enter or expand in public sector markets. They should also review their competition law compliance procedures to ensure they remain fit for purpose as procurement monitoring and screening becomes more sophisticated. This is important not only because of the increased risk of detection and significant penalties for competition law infringements, but also because, in a public procurement context, a breach can lead to exclusion from public tenders for up to five years.

What happens next?

While the recommendations are directed primarily at Government and public authorities, the papers provide a clear indication of the CMA's priorities and the direction of travel for procurement and competition policy.

First, the CMA is taking a broader view of its role in supporting growth. It is presenting competition as a means of helping Government use procurement to shape markets, support innovative businesses and strengthen strategically important capabilities.

Second, the bid-rigging paper signals an increasingly data-led approach to cartel detection. If the CMA obtains broader and more consistent access to bid-level information, businesses participating in public procurement could face closer scrutiny across multiple tenders, buyers and periods of time.

Public authorities and suppliers should, therefore, follow the Government’s response and consider now whether their procurement strategies, tendering practices and competition compliance arrangements are equipped for this direction of travel.