Quick answer: Most public sector framework agreements are designed for procurement convenience, not market access. The eligibility criteria, lot structures, and call-off processes that make frameworks easy to use also make them systematically inaccessible to smaller and newer suppliers — precisely the ones your supplier development programme is trying to cultivate.
Framework agreements are a legitimate procurement tool. I have set up enough of them to know they serve a genuine purpose: reducing repetitive tendering, creating pricing certainty, and giving busy procurement teams a compliant route to market. I am not here to argue against frameworks.
What I am here to argue is that most frameworks are built with the incumbent market in mind, and then supplier development programmes are bolted on afterwards as if the two things are unrelated. They are not unrelated. In many cases, your framework is directly undoing the work your supplier development programme is trying to do.
The eligibility problem nobody wants to talk about
Take a standard framework for construction or facilities management. You will typically see turnover thresholds at two or three times the contract value, three years of audited accounts, and insurance requirements calibrated to the largest possible call-off. These are understandable if you are managing risk on a large contract. They are also an effective filter that removes every SME, social enterprise, and newer business from the pool before anyone has evaluated a single piece of work.
If your organisation has a supplier development programme aimed at bringing exactly those suppliers into your market, ask yourself how many of the businesses you have been developing can actually get onto your frameworks. In my experience, the honest answer is usually very few.
Lot structures that look open but aren't
The standard response to this problem is to create smaller lots. Lot A for large contracts, Lot B for medium, Lot C for small — everyone gets a chance. In principle, this works. In practice, the call-off process within each lot often still favours the suppliers who know how to navigate it.
Mini-competitions with short turnaround times, complex specification documents, and a requirement to have recent public sector references all compound the problem. A supplier who joined your development programme six months ago and just won their first small contract is unlikely to be competitive against a business that has been on your framework for four years and knows your specification writers by name.
Lot structure is necessary but not sufficient. The call-off design matters just as much.
The renewal cycle problem
Most frameworks run for four years with an option to extend. That is a sensible lifespan. It is also a significant barrier to new market entrants, because the window for joining is narrow and infrequent.
If your supplier development programme is actively building supplier capability across a two to three year horizon — which is roughly the realistic timescale for meaningful development — there is a reasonable chance you will develop a supplier to readiness and then find that the relevant framework has just been renewed and will not reopen for another three years. That is not a planning failure on anyone's part. It is a structural misalignment that nobody in the organisation has thought to address.
The Procurement Act 2023 introduces open frameworks with rolling admission cycles, specifically to address this issue. If your organisation is not already planning to use open frameworks where they are appropriate, you should be. It is one of the more practically useful changes in the Act.
What the buyer can actually do
There are some things within your control now, without waiting for the next framework renewal.
First, audit your current frameworks against your supplier development pipeline. List the suppliers you are actively developing and check which frameworks they could realistically access today. If the answer is almost none, that is useful information for your next procurement committee conversation.
Second, look at your call-off processes within existing frameworks. Can you increase turnaround times for mini-competitions? Can you reduce the documentation burden for lower-value call-offs? In many cases, the call-off process is set by habit rather than necessity, and there is more flexibility than teams assume.
Third, when you are designing the next framework, involve your supplier development team in the eligibility and lot structure decisions. This sounds obvious. It almost never happens. Framework design sits with category managers, supplier development sits elsewhere, and the two conversations do not connect until it is too late to change anything.
Finally, take open frameworks seriously as a mechanism. They are not appropriate for everything, but for markets where you are actively trying to develop new entrants, the ability to admit suppliers on a rolling basis is directly aligned with what supplier development programmes are trying to achieve.
Practical takeaway
Before your next framework is published, run a simple test: take the five suppliers your development programme is most proud of and check whether they could get onto the framework at the point of publication. If the answer is no, the framework design needs to change — not the supplier development programme.