Public Procurement and Property

Scottish Government delivers innovative procurement for Electronic Counting of Votes across Scotland

December 3, 2020 by Niamh Duncan No Comments | Category Best practice, contracts, framework agreements, Procurement news, suppliers, Uncategorized

Our Scottish Government Procurement team are pleased to announce a contract between Scottish Government and Fujitsu along with Idox to support the Electronic Counting of Votes for the 2022 Local Government Elections. The Agency agreement will provide essential support to 32 local authorities as well as a number of community, environmental and fair work benefits.

The Local Governance (Scotland) Act 2004 provides for councillors in Scotland to be elected by the single transferrable vote (STV) system of proportional representation from wards currently returning three or four councillors. Due to the complex calculations involved in the system of STV used – called Weighted Inclusive Gregory (WIG), eCounting has been employed by all local authorities for every Local Government election since 2007. eCounting means election results can be delivered faster and more efficiently to the people of Scotland.

For this iteration of the project the team took a step back and understood previous lessons learned which led us to change the procurement approach. They worked closely with our Elections team to understand the requirement fully.

Different approaches included:

• significant work into be spoking terms and conditions to make them align with project requirements,
• a re-working of the pricing schedule to include tolerance bands which will allow the project to flex up and down to reflect changing circumstances and gain best value for money.

Learning from the previous three iterations which were Frameworks, this was done as an Agency agreement which meant the team could contract on behalf of all 32 Local Authorities  to make efficiency savings for both them and the Scottish Government. The efficiency savings delivered are significant as 32 local councils were not required to undertake 32 separate procurement processes to procure the required system.

To encourage some innovative proposals, when tendering, focus was put on climate emergency and fair work first questions. This approach proved successful and the contract will contain a wide range of positive policies and community benefits as well as significant cost savings.

Practices that will be adhered to throughout this contract include:

• A no single-use plastic policy
• Energy star ratings for equipment used
• No zero hour contracts
• A commitment to eradicate a gender pay gap

As a result of this contract other significant benefits will be realised such as:

• Voting accuracy and voter confidence
• Fair work and community benefits
• Work placements for 14-16 year olds & graduates
• Targeted Recruitment and Training
• Digital Inclusion initiatives

If you want to learn more about Scottish Government procurement frameworks and contracts visit our directory here, to find out more about upcoming opportunities pleases visit Public Contracts Scotland.

Tags: Community benefits, contracts, environmental benefits, framework agreements, public sector procurement, Scottish Procurement

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