Procurement glossary · Procedures and routes to market
Direct award
Awarding a public contract to a supplier without running a competition. The Procurement Act 2023 permits it only in defined circumstances, such as genuine extreme urgency, where only one supplier can meet the requirement, or where a prior competition produced no suitable tenders. It is the exception, and authorities have to be able to justify it.
Also called Award without competition.
What it means in practice
Direct award is the route suppliers hear about and assume is a closed door. It is narrower than its reputation and wider than most suppliers exploit.
The grounds are specific and an authority using one has to be able to defend it, because a direct award is among the more challengeable decisions in procurement. Transparency requirements attach to it, which is what makes the awards visible on Find a Tender after the fact.
The commercially useful reading for a supplier is not how to be directly awarded to. It is that direct awards are published, and a pattern of them tells you where an authority has a requirement it struggles to compete, which is intelligence about a future procurement. The other useful reading is that under a framework, what feels like a direct award to a supplier is usually a call-off made without a mini-competition, which is a different mechanism with different rules.
Where suppliers get caught
Confusing a direct award under the Act with a direct call-off from a framework. They are not the same thing and they are reached by completely different routes. A supplier chasing direct awards is usually, on inspection, describing framework call-offs, and the way to win those is to hold a place on the framework.
Common questions
When can a public body award a contract without competition?
Only on grounds the Procurement Act 2023 defines, which include genuine extreme urgency, situations where only one supplier can supply, and cases where a prior competition produced no suitable tenders. The authority must be able to justify the ground it relies on.
Can I persuade a buyer to direct award to me?
Very rarely, and treating that as a sales strategy wastes time. The realistic version is to be on the framework the buyer calls off from, and to be known to them before the requirement is written, which is what pre-market engagement is for.
Related terms
If a tender in front of you turns on this, send us the documents and the deadline and we will tell you honestly whether it is worth bidding. Call 020 3668 5488, or read the rest of the UK procurement glossary.