The Procurement Revolution Housing Has Been Waiting For

Picture a housing officer in November. The heating season has just begun, and the calls are already stacking up. A boiler out in flat 14. Damp reported in three properties on the same estate. A broken entry system flagged as a safety emergency. By Monday morning, she has eleven open repair tickets and winter hasn't even properly arrived yet.

She knows what's coming. Every year it's the same. The volume surges, the urgency compounds, and the process stays the same: find a contractor for this job. Find a different one for that job. Chase availability. Check compliance. Repeat. Eleven emergencies means eleven separate searches, eleven separate audit trails, eleven separate headaches  while Awaab's Law timescales are live, the regulator is watching, and somewhere behind her, a compliance manager is asking which procurement route she used and where the paperwork is.

What she needs and what the whole sector quietly aches for is to hand that pile of work to one trusted, pre-vetted contractor and say: here's the package, can you take it? Not eleven transactions. One.

That is not how traditional frameworks work. But it is exactly what the Open Framework was built to make possible.

The sector is absorbing more pressure than it ever has - simultaneously. The Procurement Act 2023 came into force in February 2025, the most significant overhaul of public procurement in a generation. Awaab's Law followed in October, demanding faster response, documented evidence and no exceptions. Skills shortages have strained the supply chain. And research estimates that the sector wastes time and effort worth £400 million every year - for repairs and allocations alone - because systems don't talk to each other and procurement processes weren't built for this pace.

Traditional frameworks were never designed for this environment. They close the supplier market at a fixed point in time, demand heavy administration with every call-off, and stop at contract award leaving providers to manage delivery in a completely separate system. The compliance and the operation have always lived apart. Until now.

In February 2026, Plentific and CDS Co-operatives launched the Open Framework - the first PA23-compliant solution in housing that brings procurement and work order management together on one connected platform. Pre-vetted contractors. Direct award or mini-competition. Full audit trail. Real-time performance tracking. A supplier market that reopens every six months so the pool never stagnates. And Plentific managing the entire framework: supplier onboarding, documentation, compliance - so operational teams can focus on residents, not paperwork. As Tom Bremner, Chief Executive of CDS, put it when it was launched: "Housing providers will benefit from an agile, digital, PA23-compliant solution that will drive better quality and wider value at the touch of a screen."

What makes this partnership compelling isn't just the technology. CDS has spent decades managing housing services for over 30 housing co-operatives. CDS does not just sponsor the framework - they use it. That means the solution was shaped by the same pressures every provider in that Monday morning scenario faces. It is a practical answer from people who live inside the problem.

At Housing 2026 in Manchester - Hasan Bayraktar and Tom Bremner take the stage on Wednesday 24th June to walk through exactly what the Open Framework means in practice. The session is happening at the right moment: the framework's first contractor intake closes on 8 June, just two weeks before the conference. Providers who attend will leave knowing exactly how to access it and move fast.

That housing officer, scrolling through an inadequate list on a Monday morning, deserves better tools. So do her colleagues, her compliance team, and the residents waiting on the other end of the line.

Come hear about it on 24th of June at Housing 2026. Then find us at Stand F22 — we'd love to show you what it looks like when procurement finally works the way it should.

Book a meeting with us at Housing