Public Procurement and Property

Keeping Scotland connected

September 10, 2020 by Niamh Duncan No Comments | Category digital technology products and services, ICT, Scottish Procurement

In response to the Covid 19 outbreak, Scottish Procurement have been busy supporting the Scottish public sector through this challenging time.

Our Information and Communications Technology (ICT) team have been working hard to assist with the large-scale implementation of home working. Through our collaborative frameworks, a range of equipment has been provided and over 200,000 devices have been deployed in the first half of 2020. Alongside this, the ICT team have been in collaboration with the Scottish Government Digital Directorate to support vulnerable and disadvantaged communities, through the Connecting Scotland programme.

Connecting Scotland is a Scottish Government funded programme and aims to provide devices and connectivity, and to develop digital skills for people who are digitally excluded. The team worked closely with the Connecting Scotland project team to determine the requirement. Then followed this up by seeking support from some of our key collaborative framework suppliers. Despite the huge increase in worldwide demand, our suppliers recognised the importance of this programme and were able to source devices to meet the unprecedented demand.

Over 32,000 families and individuals will benefit from the programme. Further phases have recently been announced with Scottish Procurement and our framework suppliers continuing to support this worthwhile cause.

Scottish Procurement were also asked to assist a group of charities under the Scottish Government’s Violence against women and girls policy. One of the areas they were looking for support on was mobile telephony, to make sure victims were able to contact support services at any time. Our recently awarded Mobile Voice & Data Services framework was able to offer a flexible and value for money solution. This resulted in the charities achieving considerable savings that will enable them to re-direct more services to frontline support.

Another charity to benefit was the Manda Centre, who offer support to families and friends affected by trauma, loss and personal crisis. Capito (a local SME) work with HP Inc. on both the Mobile Client Devices and Desktop Client Devices frameworks. As part of their response to the pandemic, they were offering reconditioned devices such as laptops to charity organisations in need.

We were able to connect Capito and the Manda Centre, and they were delighted to be able to donate licenced laptops. This supported the essential services provided by the Manda Centre and enabled their team of volunteers to continue to provide these valuable services remotely.

You can find out more about the wide range of ICT technology frameworks and wider procurement arrangements available to Scottish public bodies here.

Tags: Community benefits, ICT, Scottish Procurement

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