Shirley Cooper, Crown Representative for SMEs, shares her advice for small business owners thinking about bidding for government work. Drawing on her experience as a business co-founder and advocate for underrepresented groups in procurement, she explains why success starts with knowing your own business.

If there’s one thing I wish more small business owners understood before they bid for government work, it’s this: know yourself and your business first.

Since the Procurement Act 2023 came into force, government has committed to levelling the playing field for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This commitment was set out in more detail in last year’s SME Action Plans, which outline how the Government Commercial Agency (GCA) and all large departments will help meet this aspiration.

Since then, I’ve spoken to many SMEs about how they can make the most of the opportunities this creates, and my key piece of advice is always the same: understand yourself before you embark on selling to government.

What’s your business plan? What’s your unique selling point? Why would government buy from you rather than someone else? Is this bidding opportunity a good fit for both parties? Think carefully about what success would look like for your business, and where it might be achieved, before spending precious time and resources on bidding.

Bidding for the wrong opportunities is a common pitfall that leads smaller businesses to waste valuable time and energy on unsuccessful public sector tenders. Cash flow pressures or quiet periods can tempt smaller business owners to chase any available work, even if it stretches their core competencies and without checking if they match the buyer’s specification. This can be costly and businesses need to learn the ability to say ‘no’ to the wrong opportunities. Before you commit ask yourself:

• does what we offer genuinely align with the buyer’s needs?
• how far will it stretch our capabilities?
• do we fully understand the technical, geographic, or social value requirements?

Why getting it right matters so much

Of the 5.7 million businesses in the UK, 5.64 million are SMEs, 99 per cent of the entire business landscape. They employ around 17 million people, roughly 60 per cent of the private sector workforce, and generate over half of all private sector turnover, some £2.8 trillion. This is not a niche corner of the economy. It’s the engine room of the UK.

Government spends around £385 billion a year on goods, works and services. It is important that this is made more reachable for SMEs, whether directly or through strategic suppliers who subcontract them – this sits at the heart of the growth mission and that is why my role exists.

As a Crown Representative for small businesses within the newly established Government Commercial Agency (GCA) – the UK’s largest public procurement organisation, I’m here to lead the relationship between the government and Small Businesses to achieve the best commercial and procurement outcomes for the UK. My aim is to reduce procurement barriers and make it easier for SMEs to win public sector contracts.

The action plan sets out how and why SMEs should work with the Government Commercial Agency.

Getting onto a framework can take significant work, but once you’re on it, it acts as a stamp of quality and compliance, making it easier to win business with government. It’s also a genuine opportunity to showcase what you can do to many buyers at once.

My role as a Crown Representative for SMEs

The Crown Representative role sits independently and exists to lead the relationship between government and small business, working with ministers, commercial directors, trade bodies, and strategic and prime suppliers. While I work out of GCA I am seen as independent of government, and this helps SMEs talk to me and with ministers and trade bodies.

Every department now has its own SME Champions, including GCA. These are colleagues whose job is to make sure SME interests are represented inside departmental commercial decisions, not just at the point of tender, but earlier, when requirements are still being shaped. I work with these champions closely, reviewing the SME Action Plans they help build, comparing where departments are ahead of the curve, and making sure good practice is shared widely.

I co-founded a start-up in 2011 that became a multi-award-winning global law firm, based in Yorkshire. I have spent much of my career opening doors that weren’t always open; I co-founded a network for women in procurement, became Chair and President for CIPS launching the Fellowship to bring CPOs together and I have led an independent review of a major public procurement. My lifelong vision is a world of inclusion and equality of opportunity, and I see the SME agenda as a direct expression of that.

Once you know your USP, here’s how the system now works for you

The Procurement Act 2023 has been described as a once-in-a-generation change. It requires GCA to understand the barriers SMEs encounter and to mitigate against them. Instead of shutting out new suppliers for long periods, open frameworks now periodically reopen so new businesses can join. Additionally, a new, streamlined search tool has been developed to simplify how suppliers search, filter, and identify contract opportunities.

In August 2026, the Cabinet Office introduced PPN 026, a streamlined Social Value Model structurally designed to further level the playing field for SMEs by removing complex bureaucratic layers including the Under-£1m Exemption.

• The Rule: Central government contracts valued under £1 million are entirely exempt from mandatory social value scoring under PPN 026.
• The Benefit: This eliminates a significant administrative burden. Historically, SMEs struggled with the heavy resource cost of writing complex, abstract social value proposals for lower-value tenders

Government has identified twelve barriers to SME participation: such as a lack of market engagement, overly complex processes, and short timescales. None of these are new, and every one is fixable. That evidence shaped the Act but it shouldn’t be treated as the finished list. Buyers should not limit themselves to mitigating these twelve barriers alone; they should be using procurement market engagement to identify the full range of barriers SMEs face in each specific procurement, since new and different obstacles can emerge depending on the market, sector or contract in question.

How to become a public sector supplier

Begin by registering on the Central Digital Platform (CDP)  which operates through the enhanced Find a Tender Service portal – the CDP makes it easier for suppliers to find and bid for public sector contract opportunities. Your core supplier profile will now be saved so you only need to submit it once. Public authorities rely on this platform to advertise procurement notices, while businesses use it to identify and bid on key projects.

Take up preliminary market engagement – contracting authorities now have a duty to have regard to the barriers small firms face, meaning more preliminary conversations before a formal process begins. Get involved in preliminary market engagement by proactively monitoring upcoming public sector transparency notices published on the Central Digital Platform, responding to preliminary market engagement questionnaires, and attending industry consultation events before a formal tender opens.

Read the SME Action Plan for your target department, and ask about payment terms. Prime contractors are expected to pay subcontractors within 30 days.

If you get stuck, GCA’s guidance, videos and knowledge hub content cover most of what SMEs ask me about directly. Most of what people struggle with has an answer already published somewhere, the trick is knowing where to look.

What does the future look like?

The system isn’t perfect, and SME owners tell me honestly and often where it still falls short. I take that seriously, because my job is to keep listening and keep improving the system. What I want every small business to know is this: GCA is genuinely working to make government procurement fairer and more accessible, and that work isn’t finished.

If you’re thinking about government work for the first time, don’t be put off by the scale of the system. Start by knowing your own business, then know that GCA is here, genuinely, to help you find your way in. Behind every commercial agreement GCA holds, there is a real appetite, from departments and strategic suppliers alike, to see more SMEs win the contracts they’re capable of delivering. That appetite can only meet you halfway. The rest starts with knowing yourself.

For further information visit our How to Supply pages.