Procurement glossary · Challenge and remedies
Standstill period
The pause between a contracting authority telling bidders who won and actually signing the contract. Under section 51 of the Procurement Act 2023 the mandatory standstill is eight working days beginning with the day the contract award notice is published. It exists so an unsuccessful bidder has a window to challenge before the deal is done.
Also called Alcatel period.
What it means in practice
Standstill is the only point in a procurement where a decision is both made and still reversible. Once the period ends and the contract is signed, the remedies available to a losing bidder narrow sharply, which is why the eight working days matter far more than their length suggests.
Section 51 of the Procurement Act 2023 sets the mandatory period as eight working days beginning with the day on which the contract award notice is published. That is a change in both length and trigger from the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 regime, and procurements that commenced under the 2015 regulations continue to run under those rules, so the applicable period depends on when the procurement started rather than when you are reading about it.
Not every award carries a mandatory standstill. The Act sets out exceptions, including certain direct awards, awards under a framework, and light touch contracts. An authority may still choose to apply a voluntary standstill where none is required, and many do, because doing so limits their own exposure later.
For a bidder the practical sequence is this. The award notification arrives, usually with the scores and the winning bidder's scores. You read it, you decide within days whether anything in it looks wrong, and if it does you act inside the window. Requesting further information does not extend the clock.
Where suppliers get caught
Treating the standstill letter as the end of the process rather than the start of a short one. Most unsuccessful bidders read the scores, feel aggrieved, and do nothing until the period has passed, at which point the contract is signed and the realistic remedy is damages rather than a re-run. If something about the evaluation looks genuinely wrong, the decision to take advice has to be made in the first two or three days, not the last.
Common questions
How long is the standstill period under the Procurement Act 2023?
Eight working days, beginning with the day the contract award notice is published, per section 51 of the Act. Procurements commenced under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 continue under the older rules, so check which regime your procurement started under.
Does asking for more feedback pause the standstill period?
No. The clock runs regardless. Authorities will normally answer questions inside the window, but a slow response does not extend it, which is why a bidder who suspects a problem should raise it immediately rather than waiting for a full debrief.
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.