Only 20% of direct public sector procurement spend was with SMEs in 2023, with just over 120,000 benefiting from government contracts
While total public spending directly with SMEs has grown over the past six years to £39.7bn, SME contracts only made up a fifth of overall expenditure last year with the majority of business they did manage to secure handed out by local government bodies.
The 20% share was the same as 2022, and was only slightly up on pre-pandemic performance of 19% in 2019.
Although the share of contracts has barely changed in four years, the value of placed contracts has risen from £25bn in 2019 to £39.7bn in 2023. The total value of government procurement expenditure last year was £194.8bn, according to consultancy firm Tussell.
Total spend on external suppliers across all sectors of government is closer to £300bn so this reduces SME share even further.
