Open source procurement policy exists on paper but has no weighting, audit or skills behind it

The Technology Code of Practice ('be open and use open source') and the Digital, Data and Technology Playbook have required consideration of open source since 2012, but there is no evaluation weighting, no requirement to record the comparison, and no reporting on compliance. The Procurement Act 2023 and G-Cloud 15 (the first 'open framework') modernised process without any open source provisions. OpenUK's UKRI-commissioned recommendations (October 2025) identify the fixes: expand the procurement definition of open source beyond licence to include documentation, contributor support and community development, and train procurement officers to assess it. Result today: proprietary renewals roll over by default, and OSS SMEs (e.g. the 23 LocalGov Drupal vendors) get no credit for openness or exit-cost savings.

Procurement is where open source policy dies. Without recorded comparisons and openness weighting, fourteen years of 'consider open source' has produced almost no measurable shift in the £20bn+ the public sector spends on technology.

A Procurement Policy Note under the Procurement Act 2023 making open source consideration auditable (recorded total-cost-of-ownership comparison including exit costs, an openness criterion in evaluation), plus commercial-function training, implementing OpenUK's recommendations to UKRI.

// State-led: Instrument: Procurement Policy Note under the Procurement Act 2023 (Cabinet Office).

An off-the-shelf Procurement Policy Note could make openness auditable across £20bn+ of spend as the Procurement Act beds in, yet fourteen years of guidance has shifted almost nothing.