RM6399 Consultancy and Professional Services, or CaPS, is the framework taking over from RM6309, the Management Consultancy Framework 4 (MCF4). Applications are open now, closing 9th November 2026. If you’re currently on MCF4 and planning to apply for CaPS, this is worth reading closely before you submit.
It’s worth being precise about what “replacing” actually means here. CaPS is a separate framework, procured from scratch under different legislation, and there’s no transfer arrangement for existing MCF4 suppliers. If you’re currently listed on MCF4 and want to keep that route to market, you’ll be applying as a new bidder. You’ll be on equal footing with everyone else.
If you’re new to CaPS entirely, our overview of the framework covers the basics. This article picks up from there and focuses specifically on what’s changed for suppliers moving across from MCF4.
The Procurement Act 2023 is the reason for most of it
The old procurement regime governed MCF4. The Procurement Act 2023 governs CaPS instead, and that Act came into force in February 2025. This isn’t a technicality. The Act changed how contracting authorities assess financial standing and how payment terms work. It also changed what suppliers have to evidence before they can bid at all. GCA now standardises several of those requirements across its frameworks, rather than writing them fresh for each one. So if you’ve been through the MCF4 application before, that experience will help you less than you’d hope. The commercial proposition is comparable, but the compliance gate in front of it has moved.
10 Lots, and the service lines are now confirmed
CaPS spans ten lots covering business, strategy and policy, finance, HR, procurement, health and social care, infrastructure and environment, and restructuring and insolvency. GCA published a draft lot structure during engagement, then confirmed the final service lines in its August 2026 supplier engagement update. That document is the first thing to read if you’re planning to apply, because it determines which lots you’re genuinely eligible for.
The August update also settled a question tech suppliers had been asking since our first article on CaPS. Where does digital and technology-led work actually sit? GCA has now added digital, technology and cyber as its own explicit service line across most of the lots. That includes Strategy and Policy, Finance, HR, Procurement, Infrastructure and Public Services, and Environment and Sustainability. Under MCF4, that kind of work either didn’t exist as a named line or sat buried inside a broader category.
This matters more than it sounds. Suppliers routinely over-apply, bidding for lots they can’t evidence, or miss a lot they could have won comfortably. Both are expensive mistakes and both are avoidable with an hour spent on the confirmed service lines document.
Technical Ability Certificates are now part of the process
One of the more significant additions confirmed in August is the requirement for Technical Ability Certificates (TACs). A TAC is a declaration referencing a specific contract you’ve delivered, which GCA then validates directly with the customer named on it. They’ve become standard across recent GCA frameworks. They’re unforgiving if you haven’t prepared, since each one needs a genuine, recent, separately named contract where you had a delivery role.
Gather your contract references now, and confirm your customer contacts are happy for GCA to contact them directly. It’s the single most time-sensitive thing you can do right now, and also the thing suppliers most often leave until it’s too late.
Financial standing is assessed through the FVRA
CaPS uses the Financial Viability Risk Assessment tool, now the prescribed method for assessing economic and financial standing across government procurement. It works differently from a straightforward turnover threshold. You populate the tool, and it applies defined metrics against published thresholds. It returns a red, amber or green rating against each ratio, so you see your initial outcome before you submit.
There are three possible outcomes: acceptable, acceptable with mitigating actions such as a guarantor, or unacceptable. The part worth knowing is that amber or red isn’t an automatic fail. The tool includes space for mitigating commentary, and GCA has been clear that suppliers should use it. If a ratio looks odd for a legitimate reason, explain it. GCA has also confirmed you’re not limited to statutory accounts. The more relevant financial detail you provide, the better they can understand your business.
You’ll need a compliant Carbon Reduction Plan
If you haven’t produced one before, budget 4-8 weeks. This isn’t a document you can put together the week before submission, and you can’t backdate it.
PPN 006 has been in force since February 2025. A compliant Carbon Reduction Plan needs to include:
- your supplier name exactly as the bidding entity
- a publication date within the last 12 months
- a commitment to Net Zero by 2050 or sooner
- baseline emissions, calculated before any reduction measures
- current emissions covering a full 12 month cycle, dated within 18 months
- reporting against Scope 1, 2 and 3
- reduction targets and a narrative on the measures you’ve put in place
- sign-off from a director or equivalent, named and dated
You also have to publish it on your own website, rather than holding it internally or sending it on request, and GCA recommends keeping it to ten pages. Two things catch suppliers out. You need to report against every Scope 3 category in the technical standards. Add a narrative where one doesn’t apply, or where you’re still measuring it. And GCA doesn’t accept carbon offsets or carbon neutral certificates as equivalent to actually reducing emissions.
Prompt payment – check your position now
The Procurement Act automatically implies 30-day payment terms into public sector contracts and subcontracts. On top of that, PPN 015 applies to CaPS. To pass, you need to show one of two things. Either you pay at least 95% of invoices within 60 days, or at least 90% within 60 days plus an action plan on improving. You also need to be paying all invoices within an average of 55 days. You’ll need to evidence both across at least one of the two previous 6-month reporting periods. Your Payment Practice Reports can do that.
This one is worth checking early, because it’s a barrier rather than a scoring deduction. If your payment performance doesn’t currently clear the threshold, you want to know that now, not later. A technical footnote for the detail-minded: PPN 018 came in on 1st October 2025 with updated requirements. GCA published CaPS’s UK2 notice before that date, though, so PPN 015 applies here.
Cyber Essentials
CaPS suppliers will need Cyber Essentials accreditation. If you don’t currently hold it, factor certification time into your planning.
More pricing flexibility than MCF4 offered
One area where CaPS gives suppliers more room is commercial structure. Buyers can choose between time and materials, fixed price, or risk and reward arrangements. Risk and reward is the interesting one. If your consultancy model suits outcome-based pricing, that’s a route which was far less available on previous consultancy frameworks. Worth thinking about how you’d price the same engagement three different ways.
Buyers get a shortlisting tool
CaPS includes a tool to help buyers shortlist suppliers, which is a small feature with real commercial consequences. Buyers often filter a supplier list before they publish a requirement. How you describe your business on the framework directly affects whether you show up. Your service line selection isn’t an admin task. It’s a visibility decision that will shape your pipeline for the life of the framework.
A capped supplier list, a management fee, and scoring that varies by lot
Three commercial details confirmed in the published tender notice didn’t exist under MCF4 in this form, or weren’t public in the same way. GCA caps CaPS at a maximum of 500 suppliers across all ten lots. This is a genuinely competitive process, not an open list. Successful suppliers also pay a management fee: 1% of everything they invoice through call-off contracts. Build that into your pricing model from the outset, rather than discovering it after award.
The scoring split is the one that changes bid strategy most. Award criteria vary sharply by lot. Lot 1 (Multidisciplinary) weights 80% on price and only 20% on quality. Most other lots run the opposite way, around 90% quality and 10% price. Restructuring and Insolvency sits in between at 70% quality, 30% price. A Lot 1 bid lives or dies on price. A Lot 3 (Transformation) bid needs to win almost entirely on the quality of your written response instead. Know which lot’s rules you’re playing to before you start drafting.
Timeline: where things currently stand
The tender is open now, with firm dates published alongside it:
- September 2025 to June 2026: pre-market engagement, including customer and supplier sessions (complete)
- August 2026: updated supplier engagement slides published, confirming service lines and TAC requirements (complete)
- September to December 2026: tender period (indicative)
- January to June 2027: evaluation period (indicative)
- July to August 2027: go live (indicative)
What to do now
With submissions due 9th November, there’s roughly 7 weeks left.
- Read the confirmed service lines and decide honestly which lots you can evidence
- Gather your TAC contract references and check your customer contacts are willing to be approached
- Check your Carbon Reduction Plan is current, compliant and published on your site. If you don’t have one, start this week
- Pull your payment performance data and compare it against the PPN 015 thresholds
- Confirm Cyber Essentials is in date
- Run your numbers through the FVRA logic and draft mitigating commentary for anything likely to come back amber
- Check the award criteria for your target lot and weight your bid accordingly, price-led for Lot 1, quality-led for most others
Next steps
We’ll keep this page updated as and when GCA publishes more. In the meantime, if you’re on MCF4 and planning to apply for CaPS, the useful work is all in the next 7 weeks.
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