The 7 mistakes that could derail your social housing procurement project and how to avoid them

The Procurement Act 2023 has raised the stakes for social housing procurement teams, and the most costly mistakes are still the most avoidable ones

Procurement in social housing has undergone its most significant transformation in decades. The Procurement Act 2023 shifts the focus from process compliance to a mandate centred on delivering value for money, driving economic growth and embedding social value into every contract. For social landlords, that shift creates both opportunity and risk.

High-stakes procurement projects fail most often not because of what happens in the market, but because of what happens before it. Poor scoping alone can lead to budget overruns of 20 to 30 per cent. Non-compliance under the Procurement Act 2023 carries real legal and reputational consequences. And missed social value is not just a lost opportunity, it is increasingly a failure to meet statutory obligations.

This eBook sets out the seven mistakes we see most often in social housing procurement, why they happen, what they mean under the new legislation and, most importantly, the practical steps your team can take to avoid them. Whether you are new to procurement or experienced in the sector, this is the hands-on guide that helps you move from transactional purchasing to genuinely strategic commissioning.

Inside this free eBook:

This practical guide covers all seven procurement pitfalls social landlords need to avoid, including:

• Skipping clear objectives and strategic alignment Why teams so often jump straight to specification without agreeing what success looks like, how that leads to scope creep, budget overruns and contracts that fail to meet the Procurement Act 2023’s value for money objective, and the three practical steps that fix it before you go to market.
• Ignoring frameworks and Dynamic Purchasing Systems Why defaulting to a full bespoke tender when a compliant framework or DPS could reduce your timeline from months to weeks is both inefficient and increasingly hard to justify, and how the Procurement Act 2023’s open framework and Dynamic Market provisions make the case for using established routes even stronger.
• Underestimating compliance in the new regulatory era Why the transition from PCR 2015 to the Procurement Act 2023 is more complex than many teams have planned for, what the new transparency notice obligations and Most Advantageous Tender standard mean in practice, and how to build compliance into your process rather than bolting it on at the end.
• Neglecting social value as a mandatory requirement Why treating social value as a secondary consideration is no longer an option under PPN 002 and PPN 003, how to identify the outcomes most relevant to your project using the Social Value Model, and how to set evaluation criteria that score social value objectively with the minimum 10 per cent weighting now required.
• Overlooking local SMEs Why unconscious bias towards larger, established suppliers and overly complex tender documentation continues to lock smaller, local businesses out of social housing contracts, and the four proactive steps procurement teams must take under the Procurement Act 2023 to remove those barriers and meet their legal duty to consider SMEs.
• Failing to engage stakeholders early and continuously Why procurement developed in isolation from end-users, finance and legal teams consistently leads to scope misalignment, internal resistance and costly contract variations, and how a structured stakeholder engagement approach from day one protects both the project and the contract.
• Not leveraging technology for compliance and efficiency Why relying on spreadsheets and manual processes is incompatible with the audit trail and data visibility demands of the Procurement Act 2023, and how e-procurement platforms, contract management tools and spend analysis can transform both your compliance position and your team’s capacity.
• A practical pre-project checklist A concise seven-point checklist your team can use at the start of every procurement project to confirm you have addressed each of the common pitfalls and aligned your approach with the Procurement Act 2023 before you go to market.

Essential for procurement professionals and project managers in social housing

• Housing association procurement leads and project managers who want a clear, practical overview of where social housing procurement projects most commonly go wrong and how to stop it happening on their watch
• Teams navigating the transition from PCR 2015 to the Procurement Act 2023 who need straightforward guidance on what the new compliance requirements mean in practice
• Anyone responsible for social value, SME engagement or contract management who wants to make sure their approach holds up to the scrutiny that the Procurement Act 2023 now demands

The Procurement Act 2023 offers procurement teams greater flexibility than its predecessor, but that flexibility comes with greater responsibility. The organisations that thrive in this new environment will be the ones that invest in planning, governance and strategic thinking before they go to market, not the ones that treat procurement as an administrative process to get through as quickly as possible.

Download your free eBook now and make sure your next procurement project starts on the right foot.