The Government Commercial Agency (GCA) is replacing RM6309, the Management Consultancy Framework 4 (MCF4). Its replacement is called RM6399 Consultancy and Professional Services, or CaPS. It’s the first iteration of this consultancy framework let under the Procurement Act 2023, rather than the older regime that covered MCF4. Applications are open now, closing on 9th November 2026.
What is CaPS?
CaPS gives central government and the wider public sector a compliant, pre-approved route to buy consultancy and professional services. Buyers can use it without running a full procurement from scratch every time. Its scope is broad: business, strategy and policy consultancy, finance, HR, procurement, health or social care and community services, infrastructure and environment, plus restructuring and insolvency.
GCA has structured the framework across 10 lots. It has now confirmed the full lot breakdown, the service lines within each one, and how they compare to MCF4. That detail matters more than it sounds, because it decides which lots you can genuinely bid for.
Where CaPS fits for tech suppliers
It’s worth being clear about what CaPS is not. It isn’t a technology procurement framework in the way G-Cloud or the Technology Services frameworks are. CaPS is a consultancy framework first.
That said, tech suppliers have a real stake in it. GCA’s August update made that stake a lot more concrete: digital, technology and cyber is now its own explicit service line across most of the lots, including Strategy and Policy, Finance, HR, Procurement, Infrastructure and Public Services, and Environment and Sustainability. MCF4 either left that kind of work off the service line list entirely, or buried it inside a broader category. CaPS names it outright.
In practice, that makes CaPS worth serious attention if you offer digital or data strategy advice, technology-enabled transformation consultancy, digital service design consultancy, or specialist advisory work with a strong technology or data component. Maybe your business sells advisory, strategy, or delivery-led services with a technology angle, rather than a product or a hosting platform. If so, this is now a confirmed route to market alongside the tech-specific frameworks you may already hold a place on.
Why the framework matters
A few confirmed features shape how buyers will run competitions under CaPS. They’re worth understanding before you bid.
The scale is now confirmed. The framework is worth £5 billion excluding VAT, or £6 billion including it. It’s a closed, four-year framework across six grades, and it runs on the Public Sector Contract (PSC). CaPS aims to include everyone from SMEs to large multinationals, not just the largest consultancies. Suppliers will also need Cyber Essentials accreditation in place, a relevant baseline for tech-adjacent suppliers to already hold.
Two commercial details are worth knowing before you apply. First, GCA caps the framework at a maximum of 500 suppliers across all ten lots, so this isn’t an open-ended list. Second, successful suppliers pay GCA a management fee: 1% of everything you invoice to buyers through call-off contracts, on top of whatever margin you’re pricing in.
Buyers also get a genuine choice of pricing model at call-off. Options include fixed fee, time and materials, technology-enabled services (TES), contingent pricing, or risk and reward, and GCA recommends outcome-based pricing where possible. It’s worth thinking now about how you’d price the same engagement under each. CaPS also includes a buyer-facing shortlisting tool with standardised terms, so evaluation should be more structured than an ad hoc procurement. How you describe your service line selection will directly affect whether you show up in that shortlist. A named GCA contract management team will support the framework once it’s live.
Timeline: where things stand today
The tender is open now, and GCA has published firm dates:
- 22nd October 2026, 3:00pm: enquiry deadline
- 9th November 2026, 3:00pm: tender submission deadline
- 1st June 2027 (estimated): award decision
- 24th June 2027 to 23rd June 2031: contract term (estimated)
What suppliers should do now
With a 9th November submission deadline, you have roughly seven weeks. That’s tight but workable, if you start now rather than in late October.
Start by mapping your consultancy-style offer against the confirmed lots. Separate the parts of your business that look like advisory or transformation consultancy from the parts that are pure technology delivery or licensing. CaPS covers the former, and the confirmed service lines tell you exactly where you fit.
Check that your Cyber Essentials accreditation is current, and start gathering your evidence base now. CaPS requires Technical Ability Certificates (TACs), and each one needs a genuine, recent, separately named contract, signed off by the customer. Chasing that evidence in late October is much harder than starting today.
Read the confirmed service lines properly rather than skimming them. Suppliers routinely over-apply for lots they can’t evidence, or miss a lot they could have won comfortably. An hour spent with the finalised lot structure avoids both mistakes.
How the scoring affects your bid
Award criteria vary sharply by lot, and that changes what a winning bid looks like. Lot 1 (Multidisciplinary) weights 80% on price and only 20% on quality. Most other lots run the opposite way: around 90% quality, 10% price. Restructuring and Insolvency sits in between, at 70% quality and 30% price.
So a Lot 1 bid lives or dies on price. A Lot 3 (Transformation) bid needs to win almost entirely on quality instead. Check the criteria for your target lot before you start pricing or drafting.
Price the same engagement three ways: fixed fee, time and materials, and risk and reward. Buyers will have the choice, so you should have the numbers ready. And remember GCA’s 1% management fee comes off the top regardless of which model you use.
For a closer look at exactly what’s changed for suppliers moving across from MCF4, including how the FVRA and TAC requirements now work in practice, our companion article on how CaPS differs from MCF4 is worth reading alongside this one.
Getting ready for CaPS
We’ll keep this page updated if GCA publishes any further changes. Want a second pair of eyes on where you fit in the lot structure, or a hand getting your submission straight before 9th November? That’s exactly what our Framework Listing Services are built for.
Book a chat with our team now to find out how we can help you.
Not sure where to start? Our free Buyability™ Assessment gives you a quick gap analysis of your wider public sector approach, bidding included.
