Scottish Government

The public sector spend of around £8bn on goods and services each year represents an enormous opportunity for suppliers, including Scottish suppliers. The ability of these suppliers to compete for and win public contracts is crucial to the Scottish economy and its development.

Scottish Government Policy

• The Review of Public Procurement in Scotland recognised that "The existence of a base of high quality and cost competitive suppliers is the optimum environment in which to achieve Best Value in procurement expenditure".
• The central initiative to ensure the public sector observes EC Treaty Principles of Equal Treatment, Transparency and Proportionality in its dealings with suppliers is the "Suppliers' Charter". The Charter defines the generic standards which suppliers can expect from contracting authorities and the standards which will in turn be expected of them as suppliers to the public sector.

It sets out a number of commitments for contracting authorities including:

• adequate publicity of contract opportunities
• use of a core qualification questionnaire
• Provision of tender debriefing to any supplier that requests it.

It also commits contracting authorities to ongoing dialogue with businesses to achieve change.

• Contracting authorities should keep bidding costs to the minimum necessary for effective competition and remove barriers to participation by, for example small firms without discriminating against others.
• During competition any minimum standards required should be proportionate to the contract in question.
• Use of the core qualification questionnaire will help buyers to meet obligations relating to minimum standards.
• It is important that suppliers can approach contracting authorities for feedback on their bids and that meaningful feedback is provided; this will help them to improve future performance consequently encouraging competition.

Adequate Publicity

Procurement regulations require public sector organisations to ensure a degree of advertising and following a procedure leading to the award of the contract which is sufficient to enable open competition and meet the requirements of the principles of equal treatment, non-discrimination and transparency.

• Advertising contract opportunities on the new Scottish public contracts portal: http://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/ will help to achieve this. Contracting authorities may also publish advertisements on their own websites or other portals and in trade or other relevant publications or journals.
• For the full text of the Suppliers' Charter and a list of signatories go to: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Government/Procurement/Selling/Supplierscharter2
• Progress on working with SMEs and the third sector will be captured as a core deliverable of Best Practice Indicators

Contact Details

Johnathan Ross

Scottish Procurement Directorate

Scottish Government

Tel 0131 244 0863

Jonathan.Ross@scotland.gsi.gov.uk