United Kingdom’s Public Procurement Law after Brexit

Korea's public procurement legal system is composed of various laws, including 「Act on Contracts in which the State is a Party」, 「Act on Contracts in which the Local Government is a Party」, 「Act on the Government Procurement Program」, 「Act on the Management of Public Institutions」, 「Act on Facilitation of Purchase of Small and Medium Enterprise-manufactured Products and Support for Development of Their Markets」, 「Defense Acquisition Program Act」, and the relationship among them is not systematically established. In order to address this issue, the enactment of the 「Act on Public Procurement (Draft)」 is being discussed. This article examines the 「Procurement Act of 2023」 in the United Kingdom, which enacted a single statute by integrating various regulations related to public procurement in each field after Brexit, in order to find implications for reforming Korea's public procurement law system. The 「Procurement Act of 2023」 in the UK presents Value For Money as the most important principle of public procurement, and to materialize it, it introduces ‘flexible competitive procedure’ as a new contracting method and ‘most advantageous tender (MAT)’ as a new award criteria. In addition, in order to ensure the effective operation of this flexible contracting system, there are regulations on securing transparency throughout the entire life cycle of the procurement, including the sharing of contract information. The 「Procurement Act of 2023」 in the UK provides the following implications for the reform of Korea's public procurement legal system. First, it is necessary to find the common principles in each sector procurement, and to legislate it into an Act. Second, it is necessary to establish the principles of public procurement, including value for money and the principle of proportionality. Third, it is necessary to prioritize and implement public procurement across government through a comprehensive public procurement plan, and in particular, to systematize the existing preferential procurement system. Fourth, it is necessary to improve contracting methods and award criteria that can realize value for money, and the collection and utilization of contract-related information is important for the proper operation of these new system.