Quick answer: Good supplier development evidence covers four areas: what you did to develop your supply market, which suppliers participated, what their readiness scores look like across compliance categories, and what changed as a result. It should be specific, dated, measurable and directly linked to your obligations under the Procurement Act 2023 and your SME spend targets. A buyer dashboard that tracks supplier progress in real time makes producing this evidence straightforward rather than burdensome.
Procurement committees and audit panels are asking more questions about supplier development than they used to. The Procurement Act 2023 has made it a formal obligation rather than a good intention, and scrutiny committees are increasingly aware of that shift. If your organisation cannot demonstrate what it has done to develop its supply market, that is no longer just a missed opportunity. It is a governance gap.
The challenge most procurement teams face is not that they are doing nothing. They are often doing quite a lot. The problem is that the activity is not being captured, structured or presented in a way that holds up to external scrutiny. Informal conversations with suppliers, ad hoc webinars, guidance documents shared by email. These things happen but they do not become evidence unless someone records them properly.
Here is what good supplier development evidence looks like and how to produce it without creating significant additional work for your procurement team.
What the Procurement Act 2023 requires you to evidence on supplier development
The Procurement Act 2023 places a formal duty on contracting authorities to have regard to the barriers faced by SMEs and to take steps to remove or reduce them. The National Procurement Policy Statement that sits alongside it requires in-scope authorities to set three-year SME spend targets from April 2025 and to report against them.
Those obligations create a clear evidence requirement. You need to be able to show not just that you have set a target, but that you have taken active steps to help your supply market meet it. Supplier development activity is the mechanism through which that happens, and the evidence of that activity is what demonstrates compliance.
A scrutiny committee or internal auditor asking about supplier development will want to know three things. What did you do? Who did it reach? What difference did it make? Your evidence needs to answer all three.
The four components of credible supplier development evidence
1. Activity evidence
This covers what your organisation actually did to develop its supply market. Webinars delivered, modules made available, tools provided, outreach conducted. It should be specific and dated. Not 'we ran supplier development sessions' but 'we delivered four online sessions between June and September 2026, covering public sector bidding, Carbon Reduction Plans, social value and the Procurement Act 2023, attended by suppliers across our key procurement categories.'
Activity evidence is the foundation. Without it, everything else is assertion.
2. Participation evidence
This covers which suppliers engaged with your supplier development programme and to what extent. How many registered, how many completed each module, how many achieved a readiness score across compliance categories. Named suppliers where appropriate, segmented by category or value band where anonymity is needed.
Participation evidence answers the question of whether your supplier development activity is reaching the suppliers who matter most to your procurement programme. A programme that reaches 200 micro-businesses but not the ten suppliers delivering 80% of your spend by value is missing its most important audience.
3. Readiness evidence
This covers what your suppliers can now demonstrate as a result of the programme. A completed Carbon Reduction Plan covering Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. A social value statement aligned to PPN 002 outcomes. A Modern Slavery statement that is current and compliant. Readiness scores across these compliance categories give your committee a picture of where your supply market was and where it is now.
Readiness evidence is the most powerful component because it shows outcomes rather than inputs. It answers the question of whether your supplier development activity is making a difference to the capability of your supply market.
4. Improvement evidence
This covers what changed. Comparing readiness scores before and after the programme, tracking changes in the quality of tender responses across social value and carbon reduction categories, monitoring SME participation rates in procurements over time. Improvement evidence links your supplier development activity to your procurement outcomes and makes the case for continuing the investment.
How to present supplier development evidence to your procurement committee
Procurement committees respond well to evidence that is visual, comparative and tied to specific obligations. A dashboard showing supplier readiness scores across compliance categories, with before and after comparisons, is more compelling than a written report describing the same information. Numbers, percentages and named outcomes land better than narrative descriptions of process.
The structure I would recommend for a committee paper on supplier development is straightforward. Open with the statutory context, the Procurement Act duty and your SME spend targets. Follow with your activity summary, what you did and when. Then your participation data, who engaged and to what extent. Then your readiness outcomes, what your supply chain can now demonstrate. Close with your forward plan, what you are doing next and how it links to your next major procurement cycle.
Keep it to two pages if you can. A committee paper that requires a procurement specialist to decode is less likely to land well than one that a non-executive member can follow without prior knowledge of the subject.
Why a buyer dashboard makes this straightforward
The evidence requirements above are significant but they are not burdensome if the right systems are in place. A buyer dashboard that tracks supplier registration, module completion and readiness scores in real time means the evidence exists as a by-product of running the programme, rather than something your team has to compile separately every time a committee paper is due.
The Supplier Development Programme buyer dashboard does exactly this. It shows you in real time which of your suppliers have registered, which modules they have completed and what their readiness scores look like across compliance categories. That data can be exported, summarised and presented to your procurement committee or audit panel without significant additional work from your team.
It also creates a longitudinal record. As suppliers progress through the programme and update their compliance documents, the dashboard captures that progress over time. By the time your annual procurement committee review comes around, the evidence has been building throughout the year rather than being assembled at the last minute.
What good supplier development evidence does for your organisation beyond the committee
The benefits of structured supplier development evidence extend beyond satisfying a committee. When your supply chain is demonstrably more capable, compliant and ready to bid, the quality of what arrives in your evaluation portal improves. Evaluation processes become easier to run, award decisions are more defensible and the risk of contract delivery issues caused by compliance gaps is reduced.
There is also a reputational dimension. An organisation that can point to a structured, evidenced supplier development programme is making a visible commitment to responsible procurement that goes beyond policy compliance. That matters in sectors where public accountability is high and in procurements where social value and responsible procurement credentials are increasingly scrutinised.
The Procurement Act 2023 has made supplier development a duty. The organisations that treat it as an opportunity rather than an obligation are the ones that will find it easiest to evidence, and the ones whose supply chains will be most competitive as a result.
Frequently asked questions
What does the Procurement Act 2023 require of contracting authorities on supplier development?
The Act places a formal duty on contracting authorities to have regard to the barriers faced by SMEs and to take active steps to remove or reduce them. The National Procurement Policy Statement that accompanies the Act requires in-scope authorities to set three-year SME spend targets from April 2025 and to report against those targets. Supplier development activity is the primary mechanism through which these obligations are met.
What evidence do I need for my procurement committee on supplier development?
Good supplier development evidence covers four areas: activity evidence showing what you did and when, participation evidence showing which suppliers engaged and to what extent, readiness evidence showing what your supply chain can now demonstrate, and improvement evidence showing what changed as a result. Evidence should be specific, dated and measurable rather than descriptive.
How do I report against my SME spend targets?
Reporting against SME spend targets requires tracking the proportion of your procurement spend going to SMEs, segmented by value band and category where possible. Alongside spend data, you should be able to evidence the development activity that is supporting SME participation in your procurements, including what programmes you have run, how many SMEs participated and what their readiness scores look like.
How does the Supplier Development Programme buyer dashboard help with committee reporting?
The buyer dashboard tracks supplier registration, module completion and readiness scores in real time. This means supplier development evidence exists as a by-product of running the programme rather than something your team has to compile separately. The data can be exported and summarised for committee papers, audits or procurement strategy reviews without significant additional work.
About the author
Paul Smith is a former Head of Procurement in the public sector and founder of ebida. He has spent years on evaluation panels assessing bids across social value, carbon reduction and bid quality, and now works with buyers and suppliers to close the gap between what procurement policy requires and what supply chains can actually deliver. ebida.co.uk | bidpiston.co.uk