Intepro SystemsUnited Kingdom
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There is no government framework for buying test equipment

We checked all 95 live agreements. None of them supplies laboratory, scientific or electronic test instruments — and saying so is more useful than implying otherwise.

Suppliers to the UK public sector like to say they are available through a government framework. It shortens a procurement conversation. For electronic test and measurement equipment, it is not true, and it is worth knowing before you build a route to market on it.

What we actually checked

The live agreements register of the Government Commercial Agency — which is what Crown Commercial Service became on 1 April 2026. Every one of the 95 live agreements was searched. None supplies laboratory, scientific, electronic test or measurement instruments.

The near misses are instructive. RM6098 TePAS 2 covers end-user devices, servers, networking and software, and explicitly not test and measurement. RM6237 is a low-value purchase system in the wrong band. RM6202 is office supplies. The only agreement worth a second look is RM6370 Space Technology Solutions, and whether ground support and test equipment falls inside its scope could not be confirmed without reading the specification.

So how does a public body actually buy this?

  • Direct tender through the Defence Sourcing Portal at contracts.mod.uk, which is where the MOD advertises its own opportunities.
  • Find a Tender, which absorbed the Central Digital Platform rather than being replaced by it. Registration is free through GOV.UK One Login, and you generate a new share code per bid.
  • Subcontract to a prime, which is how most test equipment reaches a defence programme.
  • University and research purchasing consortia, for the academic and laboratory side.

The wider point

The Procurement Act 2023 went live on 24 February 2025 and revoked the Defence and Security Public Contracts Regulations 2011 along with three other sets of regulations, though transitional provisions keep the old rules alive for procurements already under way. A supplier still describing the DSPCR as current, or naming Crown Commercial Service rather than the GCA, is working from documents that are more than a year out of date.

We would rather tell you there is no framework than let you discover it at the point of award.

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