Government Departments: Contracts
(asked on 1st March 2023) - View Source
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many (a) businesses of any size and (b) SMEs have signed up to the Contracts Finder platform in each year since its launch in 2011.
Contracts Finder originally went live in 2011 as a Business Link service. It was replatformed as a GOV.UK service in 2015. Data from 2011 - 2014 has been archived and cannot be interrogated to answer these questions.
Contracts Awarded to SMEs:
| Total awards | Awarded to SMEs | % awarded to SMEs |
2015 | 12,414 | 298 | 2.40% |
2016 | 18,747 | 1,828 | 9.75% |
2017 | 24,237 | 3,922 | 16.18% |
2018 | 29,187 | 9,290 | 31.83% |
2019 | 33,217 | 11,510 | 34.65% |
2020 | 31,398 | 11,980 | 38.16% |
2021 | 48,292 | 17,752 | 36.76% |
2022 | 53,851 | 20,899 | 38.81% |
Registered businesses:
| All Business | SME | % |
2015 | 14,604 | 2,767 | 18.9% |
2016 | 1,068 | 484 | 45.3% |
2017 | 10,194 | 4,722 | 46.3% |
2018 | 8,682 | 3,827 | 44.1% |
2019 | 7,704 | 3,313 | 43% |
2020 | 9,559 | 3,599 | 37.7% |
2021 | 9,084 | 2,687 | 29.6% |
2022 | 7,851 | 2,067 | 26.3% |
The Procurement Bill, currently passing through Parliament, will create a simpler and more transparent procurement regime that will further open up public procurement to SMEs. The Bill includes a new duty on contracting authorities to have regard to the particular barriers facing SMEs.