Standstill Period Procurement Act 2023: 5 SME Steps

By Aoba Works · Published November 3, 2026 · 15 min read

• Procurement Act 2023
• Sme Tenders

Under the Procurement Act 2023, the standstill period is a mandatory pause of at least 8 working days. It starts on the day the buyer publishes its contract award notice, and the buyer cannot sign the contract until it ends (section 51). Weekends and bank holidays in any part of the UK don't count, so the earliest signing date is working day nine (GOV.UK guidance). If you lost, use that window for five things: read your assessment summary, ask questions, check the scores, get advice and decide whether to challenge.

Which option is right for you?

Your best first move depends on how you lost and how much time and money you have. Find your situation in the table below.

For most SMEs and VCSEs (voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations), the first row is the honest answer. Most lost bids don't need a challenge. They do need careful reading of the feedback.

What is the standstill period in procurement?

The standstill period is a pause between the buyer naming the winner and signing the contract. It gives losing bidders time to check the decision and challenge it before the contract is locked in.

Under the Act, the buyer must publish a contract award notice before signing any public contract (s.50(1)). In a competitive tender, the buyer must first send every supplier whose tender was assessed an assessment summary. This is a written breakdown of your scores and, if you lost, the winning tender's scores (s.50(3)–(4)). Publishing the award notice starts the standstill clock (GOV.UK assessment summaries guidance).

The pause exists because a signed contract is hard to undo. If you start court proceedings during the standstill and the buyer is told about them, the buyer is automatically barred from signing until the case ends or the court lifts the bar (s.101). After signing, a court can only set a contract aside in narrower circumstances, and usually the most you can get is damages (GOV.UK remedies guidance).

For example, a cleaning social enterprise bids for a council contract. It receives its assessment summary on a Monday morning, and the council publishes the award notice the same day. That Monday is working day one. The following eight working days are the only time the enterprise can trigger an automatic block on signing.

Is the standstill period mandatory under the Procurement Act 2023?

Yes, for most contracts. But section 51(3) lists six types of award where no mandatory standstill applies, and several of them are common SME routes.

Source: s.51(3) and GOV.UK guidance, para 37.

Even in exempt cases, the buyer can choose a voluntary standstill. If it does, the period must be at least eight working days and the buyer can't sign before it ends (s.51(4)–(5)). Buyers often do this because it reduces the risk of the contract later being set aside (GOV.UK guidance, para 38).

Some awards need no award notice at all. These include defence and security frameworks and "user choice" contracts (s.50(6)). Where no award notice is required, there's no assessment summary or standstill either (GOV.UK guidance, Annex A).

If you are on frameworks or dynamic markets, read Framework Agreement How to Get On and Dynamic Markets Procurement Act 2023 so you know which call-offs carry a pause.

How long is the standstill period under the Procurement Act 2023?

At least 8 working days, beginning with the day the contract award notice is published. That day counts as working day one (s.51(2)).

The GOV.UK guidance is explicit: publication day is "working day one", and with the minimum period the buyer "must not enter into the contract until working day nine" (paras 44–45). Some older summaries say the count starts the day after. That's wrong under the Act, and it would give you one day less than you think you have.

What counts as a working day:

• Saturdays and Sundays never count.
• Bank holidays in any part of the UK don't count, so St Andrew's Day (Scotland) and St Patrick's Day (Northern Ireland) are skipped even for an English buyer (GOV.UK guidance, para 45).
• The buyer can set a longer period, and must state the last day of the standstill in the notice (para 43).

If a notice is published late in the afternoon, the guidance suggests buyers either publish the next morning or add an extra working day (para 44). Not every buyer will do this. Treat the date printed in the notice as the one you work to. Published notices state it in plain terms. For example, one Find a Tender award notice says "The standstill period is expected to end at midnight at the end of 6th January 2026" (Find a Tender notice).

Standstill period procurement act 2023 calculator: how to count the 8 working days

To count the 8 working days, call publication day day 1. Then count forward, skipping weekends and every UK bank holiday, and stop at day 8. The buyer can sign from day 9.

You don't need a tool. A calendar and the GOV.UK bank holidays page are enough:

1. Open the contract award notice and note the published date (not the date the award decision was made, which the notice also shows).
2. Open gov.uk/bank-holidays and check all three tabs: England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
3. Write the published date as day 1, if it's a working day.
4. Count forward to day 8, skipping Saturdays, Sundays and any date on any of the three tabs.
5. Compare your day 8 with the standstill end date in the notice. If they differ, work to the later one, and email the buyer to ask which is right.
6. Put your own deadline two working days before day 8. Court papers and legal advice take time to arrange.

Worked examples (dates are real 2026–27 calendar dates; the awards are illustrations):

In example C, day 9 can't be Friday 1 January (New Year's Day) or Monday 4 January (the substitute for 2 January in Scotland), so signing slips to Tuesday 5 January (GOV.UK bank holidays). Christmas Eve, 24 December, isn't a bank holiday, so it counts as a working day. The official guidance shows a similar Christmas example, where the clock starts on 19 December and working day nine lands on 4 January (para 47).

Day 9 is the earliest the buyer can sign, not the day it will sign. The buyer doesn't have to sign straight after the standstill (para 48).

Day-by-day standstill timeline: what happens from award decision to contract signing

The timeline runs from the assessment summaries and award notice (day 1), through eight working days, to the earliest signing on day 9. The contract details notice follows within 30 days of signing. The "What the buyer does" column shows only steps set out in the Act or the official guidance. "No set step" means neither sets one for that day.

If you aren't sure where notices appear, Contracts Finder vs Find a Tender explains which service carries which notices.

What should an unsuccessful SME do during the standstill period?

Work through the timeline above. Two steps need more detail: how to word your questions, and what your choices are when you decide on day 6.

Asking questions. Send focused questions through the buyer's procurement portal message function, or to the named contact. Keep it factual. "Please explain why our response to question 4.2 scored 3 rather than 4, given section 2.1 of our method statement" works better than "We disagree with our score".

Deciding. Your choices are to accept the result and use the feedback, to ask the buyer to extend the standstill while it looks at your concern, or to instruct a solicitor to issue proceedings before the end of day 8.

Example: a training charity sees that its social value answer scored 2 out of 5 with the comment "no measurable outcomes". Its answer actually included a table of 12 apprenticeship starts. That mismatch between the comment and the tender is worth raising on day 2. A buyer that agrees there may be an error can extend the standstill and re-publish the notice (GOV.UK guidance, para 43).

Pitfalls:

• Waiting for a debrief meeting. The Act requires the written assessment summary but doesn't require a meeting. Don't let a meeting booked for day 10 use up your window.
• Emotional emails. They make the buyer defensive and get you less useful detail.

How to request feedback and check your scoring after a contract award decision notice

The buyer must send you an assessment summary with your score for every award criterion, the reasons, and the winning tender's scores. You can ask the buyer to explain anything that's unclear.

According to the GOV.UK assessment summaries guidance, the summary must include:

• each award criterion, how much it was worth and how it was to be assessed (para 18)
• your score for each criterion and sub-criterion, plus totals (para 20)
• why each score was given, referring to "relevant information in the tender" (para 22)
• any further reason why you aren't getting the contract (para 34)
• the most advantageous tender's scoring information, which may be redacted, rather than a direct side-by-side comparison (para 5)

Explaining why you didn't score higher is best practice, not a legal requirement (para 26). The winner's name isn't strictly required (para 15). Commercially sensitive details can be withheld only where there is an overriding public interest (s.94).

How to check, step by step:

1. Rebuild the maths. Multiply each score by its weighting and check the totals for you and the winner. Arithmetic slips happen.
2. Compare each reason with the scoring guide published in the tender documents. A reason that uses a test the documents never mentioned is a warning sign.
3. Check every "missing" comment against your submission. If the summary says something wasn't there and it was, mark the page number.
4. Check the price score using the published price formula.
5. Look at whether the winner's comments seem to apply a different standard to the same question.

What clear errors look like: wrong arithmetic, a criterion or weighting that wasn't published, a comment that contradicts your tender, a pass/fail applied differently between bidders, or a missing assessment summary altogether. A one-point difference you simply disagree with usually isn't one. For a worked scoring model, see Most Advantageous Tender: 5 Steps and a Scoring Example.

How to challenge a procurement decision: what are your options and risks?

You can raise the issue with the buyer, refer it to the Public Procurement Review Service, or bring court proceedings. Only court proceedings started during standstill automatically stop signing.

Time limits: most claims must start within 30 days of when you knew, or ought to have known, about the problem. A court can extend this for good reason, but never beyond three months from that date. Claims to set aside a signed contract must also start within six months of the contract being entered into (s.106). If you miss the deadline, you effectively give up the remedy (GOV.UK e-learning, module 8).

The Public Procurement Review Service is part of Procurement Compliance & Oversight. It handles supplier complaints about a specific procurement from the last two years, through the "Raise a concern with Public Procurement Review Service" form (GOV.UK). It suits low-budget suppliers who want a fair hearing and better future practice. It doesn't suit anyone who needs to stop a contract being signed this week. Welsh procurements go to the Wales Procurement Review Unit instead, and its form says concerns must not be raised while the standstill is running (Welsh Government).

A realistic decision rule for an SME: challenge in court only if three things are all true. You have a clear error with evidence, fixing it would plausibly have made you the winner, and the contract is worth enough to justify the legal cost and management time. Otherwise, use the feedback.

Standstill period vs voluntary standstill vs old 10-day Public Contracts Regulations 2015 standstill: what changed?

The old 2015 regulations used a standstill counted in calendar days, normally 10 days when the notice was sent electronically. The Act uses 8 working days, and it applies only to procurements started on or after 24 February 2025.

Sources: reg 87 as made, s.51, Capital Law on transition.

Which regime applies depends on when the procurement started. A competitive procurement whose call for competition was published before 24 February 2025 stays under the 2015 rules. So do call-offs from frameworks and dynamic purchasing systems procured before that date (Procurement Portal). In late 2026 you can still lose a call-off under an old framework and be under the 2015 rules. Devolved Scottish authorities mostly sit outside the Act and use Scottish regulations (Brodies). To see which regime applies to your award, check the notice type and the legal basis given in the tender documents.

Next steps

Related guides on this site:

• How to Win Government Contracts UK: 7 Steps for SMEs
• Tender Writing Examples: 5 UK SME Answer Templates
• Social Value in Tenders: PPN 002 Steps and Answer Examples

FAQ

Does the standstill period apply to frameworks and dynamic markets?

Not automatically. Call-offs under a framework and awards through a dynamic market are exempt from the mandatory standstill (s.51(3)). The buyer can still choose a voluntary standstill of at least eight working days, and if it does, it can't sign before that period ends (s.51(4)–(5)).

Can a buyer sign the contract before the standstill period ends?

No. Where a standstill applies, the buyer may not enter into the contract before it ends (s.51(1)). The buyer can sign later than day 9 (GOV.UK guidance, para 48), and can extend the standstill by re-publishing the notice (para 43).

Do weekends and bank holidays count in the standstill period?

No. Weekends and bank holidays in any part of the UK are excluded, including Scottish and Northern Irish bank holidays (GOV.UK guidance, para 45). Christmas Eve isn't a bank holiday, so it counts.

What happens if I start a legal challenge during the standstill period?

If proceedings are started during the standstill and the buyer is notified, the buyer can't enter into the contract until the case is decided or dropped (s.101). The buyer can ask the court to lift this suspension (s.102). Claims started after the standstill don't get the automatic block.

Is the standstill period the same for charities and social enterprises as for other suppliers?

Yes. The Act sets the standstill by the type of contract and procedure, not by the type of supplier. One point matters more for VCSEs, though: many health, social care and education services are procured as light touch contracts, which have no mandatory standstill (s.51(3)). Always check the notice.

Sources

• Procurement Act 2023, section 50
• Procurement Act 2023, section 51
• Procurement Act 2023, section 53
• Procurement Act 2023, section 94
• Procurement Act 2023, section 101
• Procurement Act 2023, section 102
• Procurement Act 2023, section 106
• GOV.UK: Guidance on contract award notices and standstill
• GOV.UK: Guidance on assessment summaries
• GOV.UK: Guidance on remedies (PDF)
• GOV.UK: Procurement Act 2023 e-learning, module 8
• GOV.UK: Procurement Compliance & Oversight
• GOV.UK: UK bank holidays
• Public Contracts Regulations 2015, regulation 87 (as made)
• Welsh Government: Wales Procurement Review Unit
• Find a Tender: example UK6 contract award notice
• Capital Law: Transition to the new Procurement Act
• Procurement Portal: Which legal regime applies to my procurement
• Brodies: Procurement Act 2023, one week to launch
• Law Society: Find a Solicitor

Spotted something out of date or wrong? Tell us at shigoto.ai.note@gmail.com. Guides are re-checked against official sources on a rolling schedule.