Procurement of a council leisure booking system, membership software or payment service follows public procurement rules rather than a sales call. As of October 2026 that means the Procurement Act 2023 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (Scotland has its own regime), notices on Find a Tender, value thresholds that decide the route, frameworks such as G-Cloud, and a written specification scored against published criteria.
The estimated value decides the route
The Act sets thresholds, including VAT, that are revised every two years. For procurements started on or after 1 January 2026, the threshold for goods and services bought by a sub-central authority, which includes councils, is £207,720; for central government it is £135,018; for works and for concession contracts it is £5,193,000. The estimated value is the whole contract, including extensions and VAT, so a software subscription of £4,000 a month over a four-year term is a £192,000 contract and sits just under the line, while the same subscription with lockers and card terminals added may sit over it.
Above the threshold, a competitive tendering procedure is the default, with a tender notice on Find a Tender and a published award. Direct award is the exception: the Act allows it only under the justifications in section 41 and Schedule 5, such as a single supplier able to deliver for technical reasons, additional supplies where a change of supplier would cause disproportionate technical difficulty, or extreme and unavoidable urgency; under section 42 for protecting life, health or public order; or under section 43 after a competitive procedure produced no suitable tenders. A transparency notice is published before any direct award.
Below the threshold, a contract is a regulated below-threshold contract. For a council, one valued at £30,000 or more including VAT is notifiable: if the authority advertises it, a below-threshold tender notice is published on the central digital platform before anywhere else, and a contract details notice follows the award. The authority cannot run a pre-tender suitability stage for these contracts. Under £30,000, the council’s own contract procedure rules apply, typically a set number of written quotes.
Lockers on revenue share are a special case. Where a supplier funds and runs the lockers and is paid from rental revenue, the arrangement may be a concession contract, which has its own threshold and sits outside the below-threshold regime. The authority’s procurement team decides the classification; suppliers should ask early.
Find a Tender, G-Cloud and other frameworks
Since 24 February 2025, both above and below threshold notices for new UK procurements have been published on Find a Tender, except below-threshold notices in Scotland. Buyers and suppliers register with a GOV.UK One Login. Suppliers set alerts on the categories that cover leisure management and booking software; buyers publish planned procurement notices, tender notices, transparency notices and contract details notices there. For contracts over £5 million, the authority sets at least three key performance indicators and publishes performance against them at least every twelve months, which catches trust-wide multi-site deals but rarely a single centre’s booking system.
G-Cloud 15 was launched in August 2026 by the Government Commercial Agency, formed on 1 April 2026 from the Crown Commercial Service and Cabinet Office commercial teams. It is the first G-Cloud under the Act, runs as an open framework with an 18-month re-opening window for new suppliers, and lets buyers call off for up to 60 months without a lengthy individual assessment or run a competition at call-off. G-Cloud 14 closes on 28 October 2026 and all call-off contracts under it have to be signed by then. Under the Act a framework can run for four years, or eight years for an open framework, and call-off without competition is only possible where the framework sets an objective selection mechanism.
Searching for G-Cloud leisure software returns listings from suppliers who chose to join; absence from a framework is not a bar to being bought, it means the authority runs its own procedure. VenueOra is not listed on G-Cloud or any other framework. We respond to tenders.
What the specification should include
A leisure specification that produces comparable bids covers four areas in detail.
Memberships. Plan types (monthly, annual, concession, corporate, family, junior), joining online and at reception, recurring billing by card and Direct Debit, cancellation rules, how due and lapsed members are reminded, member pricing on sessions, and a member card in Apple Wallet and Google Wallet.
Sessions and bookings. Timed entry with capacity caps for swim sessions, classes, courts and soft play; waiting lists; block bookings for clubs and schools; a booking window that opens earlier for members; and one record for a member who uses three centres. Ask how the system handles a lane closure after bookings are sold.
Lockers. Whether the authority buys and maintains lockers or takes them on revenue share with no upfront cost, where the supplier funds, installs and maintains them and the authority receives a share of rental revenue. The guide to lockers as a service lists what a no-upfront-cost deal covers. State the power and connectivity available at each site, or the lack of it.
Payments. Card, Direct Debit and cashless in one ledger covering memberships, sessions, café and lockers; refunds and part-refunds; who the merchant of record is; settlement timing; and reporting that the finance team can reconcile to the general ledger. Add accessibility against the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018, data migration from the incumbent, and the reporting a leisure committee expects.
Evaluation, social value and the data questions
Bids are scored against the criteria and weightings published in the tender documents, usually a price-to-quality split with quality questions scored on a 0 to 5 scale and moderated by a panel.
Social value is scored in most leisure tenders. The Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 requires a relevant authority, before starting a services procurement, to consider how what is proposed might improve the economic, social and environmental well-being of the area and how the procurement might secure that improvement. For central government departments, Procurement Policy Note 002 applies a minimum 10% weighting for social value to procurements started on or after 1 October 2025; other authorities may adopt it, and many councils apply their own social value policies. The National Procurement Policy Statement, which authorities must have regard to under section 13 of the Act, names social value among its priorities.
Data protection questions are standard. Who the controller is for member records, and whether the supplier is a processor acting on instructions; the ICO’s guidance sets out the difference. Where the data is stored; VenueOra’s ticketing and membership data is UK-based. Whether the contract includes the terms UK GDPR requires between a controller and a processor, including return or deletion of personal data at the end. Whether a data protection impact assessment is needed for children’s data in swim lesson bookings.
Card payment questions are standard too. Who the merchant of record is, whether card data touches council hardware, and which acquiring partner handles it. Across VenueOra’s products, card data goes to a PCI DSS Level 1 acquiring partner, so card data never touches your tills, kiosks or lockers. The guide to PCI DSS for venues and attractions explains merchant levels and self-assessment.
Exit and data return
The exit schedule is the part of the contract that matters most in year four. It should state the format of the data export (member records, payment history, booking history and consent flags as structured files or through an API), the timetable for handing it over, how long the supplier keeps parallel access during migration, and a written confirmation of deletion afterwards. The ICO lists return or deletion of personal data at the controller’s choice among the terms a processor contract must contain. Hardware ownership belongs here too: who removes locker banks and terminals at the end of the term. For a wider view of selection, see how to choose a venue management system.
What VenueOra does here
VenueOra sells memberships and passes as annual and monthly plans priced by the trust, with applications and staff review, renewal reminders and lifecycle emails for due, lapsed and win-back members, sessions with capacity and buffer time, and payouts after merchant verification, with one record per member across centres. LockVault, our smart-locker service, deploys lockers at no upfront cost on revenue share, with the venue receiving a share of gross rental revenue agreed after a site survey. See leisure centres and trusts. We are not on G-Cloud or any framework. Our Free and Venue plans are published, bespoke terms for multi-site trusts are on request, and we respond to tenders; request a quote or a tender response.
Revenue figures are estimates from footfall and typical conversion. The final split and forecast come from a site survey.
This page describes how VenueOra’s products handle card data, personal data and age checks. It is not legal advice. Your premises licence conditions and your own data protection assessment take precedence.
Sources
- Procurement Act 2023 guidance: Thresholds, GOV.UK, updated 13 July 2026
- The Procurement Act 2023 (Threshold Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2025, legislation.gov.uk
- Procurement Act 2023 guidance: Below-threshold contracts, GOV.UK
- Procurement Act 2023 guidance: Direct award, GOV.UK, updated 13 July 2026
- Procurement Act 2023 guidance: Frameworks, GOV.UK, updated 13 July 2026
- Procurement Act 2023 guidance: Key performance indicators, GOV.UK, updated 20 July 2026
- Procurement Act 2023, section 13: national procurement policy statement, legislation.gov.uk
- Find a Tender, GOV.UK
- G-Cloud relaunches with biggest upgrade in its history, Government Commercial Agency on GOV.UK, 10 August 2026
- Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012, section 1, legislation.gov.uk
- PPN 002: Taking account of social value in the award of central government contracts, GOV.UK
- The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018, legislation.gov.uk
- A guide to controllers and processors, Information Commissioner’s Office
- Contracts between controllers and processors, Information Commissioner’s Office