Queensland's ICT SME scheme is gone. Read the 2026 policy

Type forgov.qld.gov.au/guidelines-working-smes into a browser and you land on a general page about buying ICT. It has three links: buying ICT, creating an ICT contract under the QITC framework, and industry engagement. There are no SME rules on it.

The link works. It just doesn't lead to any SME rules.

Take the director of a twelve-person IT firm in Toowoomba. He's a composite of owners we talk to, not one client. For years his pitch to Queensland agencies rested on one line: the ICT SME participation scheme asked agencies to consider allocating at least 10% of the evaluation weighting to Queensland SMEs in formal ICT tenders. That used to be true. It isn't now, and his capability statement still says it.

He isn't the only sort of owner at risk. A caterer still citing the pre-2026 SME rules to a regional buyer, or a cleaning company whose tender responses open with them, is standing in the same spot: pitching to a rulebook from before 1 January 2026, when the Queensland Procurement Policy 2026 became the government's main buying policy.

What was repealed on 1 January 2026

The Queensland Government issued the ICT SME participation scheme policy on 30 July 2021. Under it, agencies were asked to consider allocating at least 10% of the evaluation weighting in formal ICT tenders to Queensland SMEs, and reported quarterly on awards to Queensland SMEs and Indigenous suppliers. Its page on forgov.qld.gov.au now lists it as repealed from 1 January 2026 and points to the replacement, the Queensland Procurement Policy 2026.

So if your pitch, capability statement or sales deck cites a weighting or a participation target from before 2026, check where it came from. If the source is the old SME guidelines or the ICT scheme, take it out. A buyer who knows the current policy will notice, and it tells them you haven't read it.

What the Queensland Procurement Policy 2026 asks of agencies

The Queensland Procurement Policy 2026 started on 1 January 2026 as the Queensland Government's main policy for buying goods and services. Its forgov.qld.gov.au page was last updated on 3 June 2026. McCullough Robertson, Muscat Tanzer and MinterEllison, three law firms that advise on government contracts, have each published summaries confirming the start date and the policy's status.

Three points matter most to a small supplier:

• Local invitations on routine purchases. McCullough Robertson and Muscat Tanzer both report that for routine purchases, agencies must invite at least one local, small and family, or Queensland regional business to respond. Muscat Tanzer adds "where practical".
• A weighted criterion on bigger jobs. Business Queensland says buyers must apply a purposeful public procurement evaluation criterion to significant procurements (high value or high risk, with agency thresholds of at least $500,000 including GST) unless there's a documented reason. It carries a maximum weighting of between 10% and 20% of the total evaluation, with 5% to 10% per outcome.
• A definition and a target. McCullough Robertson reports that the policy sets a target for the share of procurement bought from Queensland SMEs and defines an SME as a business with fewer than 200 employees.

The first two points should change your pitch. Under the old ICT scheme, a Queensland SME could point to a policy that asked agencies to consider allocating at least 10% of the evaluation weighting to Queensland SMEs. Under the 2026 policy, the weighting on bigger jobs goes to the purposeful procurement criterion. On routine purchases, what counts is whether the buyer knows your business exists when they decide who to invite.

The 200-employee line matters too. On McCullough Robertson's reading of the policy, a 120-person engineering consultancy or a regional labour hire firm that never thought of itself as small is an SME, and it should say so in its capability statement.

There's one boundary to keep in mind. Muscat Tanzer says government-owned corporations are expected to incorporate the policy's principles rather than being bound by it directly. If you sell to an energy or water GOC, ask how they've applied the policy rather than assuming either way.

The part that binds suppliers

You'll often hear that procurement policy only binds the buyer. That's half right. The Queensland Procurement Policy 2026 binds agencies. The Queensland Supplier Code of Conduct 2026 puts obligations on suppliers.

MinterEllison's summary lists supplier duties under the Code. One of them is giving your subcontractors payment terms at least as good as the terms government gives you.

In practice, this applies to anyone who subcontracts part of a government job. Think of a security company that subcontracts a night shift, a logistics firm that hires in a delivery run, or an IT firm that brings in a specialist for a cyber review. If the agency pays you in, say, 20 days, check what you've promised your subcontractor before you sign. That duty sits with you, not the agency.

Most owners haven't picked this up yet, and it belongs in your bid as much as in your accounts.

Better questions to ask a buyer

"Is the 10% still considered?" is the wrong question now. The old scheme is gone. These questions work better:

1. How do you meet the local invitation requirement in this category, and how does a business like ours get onto the list you invite from?
2. Which of your upcoming purchases in our category are routine, and which will go to open market?
3. Do you buy this through a panel or standing offer arrangement, and when does it next open?
4. What does the Supplier Code of Conduct ask of us on this contract, particularly on subcontractor payment?

Each question is easier to ask when you already know the buyer's history: who they've bought from, what they plan to buy, and when their current contracts end.

Keeping track without doing it all by hand

You can do all of this by hand. Read every new tender in your category, look up each buyer's award history and set your own reminders for contract end dates. Or have it done every morning. Helm Tender brings Queensland Government, Brisbane City Council and federal tenders into a digest, scored against what your business actually does. Each buyer gets a page built from the published award record, so the Toowoomba director can see who an agency has bought from before he calls, and you can watch a buyer or a contract end date and get an email when something changes.

See which tenders fit your business at https://helmtender.com.au/?utm_source=web&utm_medium=insights&utm_campaign=helm-tender