For many suppliers, frameworks are the single most important route into public sector revenue. A growing share of public spend now flows through them, and a place on the right one can mean years of work. But they’re widely misunderstood — not least because a framework win isn’t a contract win. Here’s how frameworks actually work, and what changed under the UK’s Procurement Act 2023.
What a framework agreement is
A framework agreement is an arrangement between one or more contracting authorities and a set of suppliers, setting out the terms, conditions and often pricing under which future contracts may be awarded. Authorities then “call off” individual contracts from the framework as needs arise.
The crucial point suppliers miss: being appointed to a framework guarantees nothing. It makes you eligible to be awarded call-off contracts; it doesn’t promise you any. The real competition often happens at call-off, not at framework appointment.
How call-offs work
When an authority wants to buy from a framework, it awards a call-off contract in one of two ways:
- Direct award — the authority selects a supplier without re-competing, using an objective mechanism set out in the framework (for example, the highest-ranked supplier for that requirement).
- Mini-competition — the authority runs a further competition among the relevant framework suppliers, who submit refined bids against the specific requirement.
This is why a framework place is the start, not the end. To turn it into revenue you have to win at call-off — which means staying competitive on price and quality, and treating each mini-competition as the live bid it is.
What changed under the Procurement Act 2023
Frameworks continue largely as before, but the Act (in force across England, Wales and NI since 24 February 2025) introduced some notable changes:
- Closed frameworks keep a maximum term of around 4 years (longer only where justified by the nature of the requirement) — and stay shut to new suppliers for their duration.
- Open frameworks are new: a scheme of successive frameworks on substantially the same terms that can run for up to 8 years and must reopen to new suppliers at least once in the first three years (and can’t run more than five years without reopening). This finally lets suppliers join an established framework mid-life instead of waiting years for a re-procurement.
- Greater transparency: call-offs now require contract award and contract details notices, and a new Register of Commercial Tools is being built to make active frameworks easier to find.
In Ireland and the EU, frameworks operate under the EU directives — generally a 4-year maximum (longer for utilities) — and remain closed for their term, without the UK’s new open-framework concept.
Dynamic markets (and the end of DPS in the UK)
Alongside frameworks sits a different tool. Under the old rules a Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) was an electronic list of pre-qualified suppliers, open to new joiners at any time, but limited to commonly used “off-the-shelf” purchases.
The Procurement Act replaced DPS with dynamic markets: open to new members throughout their life, with no cap on numbers, and — crucially — usable for a far wider range of goods, services and works, not just off-the-shelf items. Call-offs run via a competitive flexible procedure among members. (Existing DPS arrangements can’t run beyond 27 October 2028.) In Ireland and the EU, DPS continue to operate under the EU rules.
The practical difference: a framework is a fixed pool you compete to join at set moments; a dynamic market is an open pool you can apply to join at any time. If you missed a closed framework, a relevant dynamic market may be your way in.
What this means for your strategy
- Treat framework access as essential. With so much public spend routed through frameworks and dynamic markets, not being on the right ones can lock you out of a market entirely.
- Apply the same bid/no-bid discipline to framework opportunities — and weigh the strategic value of access, not just immediate work.
- Watch for open frameworks reopening and dynamic markets accepting members — these are entry points that didn’t exist under the old closed-framework model.
- Win the call-off, not just the place. Resource mini-competitions properly; a framework seat you never call off from is worthless.
- Read the call-off mechanism before you commit — direct award and mini-competition demand very different competitive strategies.
The takeaway
A framework gets you into the room; the call-off wins the work. Know which type you’re dealing with — closed, the new 8-year open framework, or a dynamic market — and build a strategy for both the appointment and the competitions that follow. For the surrounding vocabulary, see public procurement terminology.
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