Public Procurement and Property

Scotland’s Baby Box on display in Philadelphia

September 21, 2021 by Melissa Reilly No Comments | Category Best practice, contracts, framework agreements, Procurement news, Scottish Procurement, SMEs, suppliers

Earlier this year, we shared a blog post announcing a new contract between Scottish Government and APS Group (Scotland) to continue to support the supply and distribution of Scotland’s Baby Box and support for the Best Start Grant.

One of Scotland’s Baby Boxes is now on display as part of the second ‘Designing Motherhood’ exhibition at the Center for Architecture + Design in Philadelphia. Designing Motherhood is ‘A first-of-its-kind consideration of the arc of human reproduction through the lens of design’. 

Photo courtesy Jelani Abdul-Aziz, Center for Architecture and Design.

The Baby Box initiative was launched in 2017 and is designed to give every single baby in Scotland an equal start in life. The Boxes aim to support parents and provide families with essential items needed in the baby’s first few months of life as well as providing a safe space for babies to sleep.

The Baby Box Policy Team commented, “We are delighted that one of Scotland’s Baby Boxes is being featured at the Designing Motherhood exhibition in Philadelphia. This is a great opportunity to showcase Scotland’s Baby Box on an international stage. At its heart, Scotland’s Baby Box strongly signals our determination that every child, regardless of their circumstances, should get the best start in life by ensuring that every family with a newborn has access to essential items needed in the first six months of a child’s life. It’s a simple idea which helps to tackle deprivation, improve health and support parents during the first few months of their child’s life.”

As we celebrate Scotland’s Baby Box being showcased on an international stage, we can also look ‘behind the scenes’ to the #PowerOfProcurement activity which has resulted in the successful curation of the box, innovative contents and the delivery of a range of community benefits such as work placements and training opportunities.

In 2019, APS won the GO Awards 2019 for Best Service for Scotland’s Baby Box and have continued to perform very well to date.  There are a number of benefits provided by the new contract (from April 2022) including:

• SMEs represent 70% of the APS supply chain;
• The secure employment of 27 members of staff including 3 Modern Apprentices;
• A commitment to engage with Barnardos Works to secure work placements for trainees as they prepare for the workplace.
• APS are an accredited Scottish Living Wage supplier and have signed up to the Scottish Business Pledge
• APS are committed to promoting the delivery of the Scottish Government’s flagship policy on Fair Work First as well as the delivery of various Community Benefits;
• APS have identified a number of options for reducing the environmental impact of Scotland’s Baby Box as well as generating savings, for example manufacturing the hat contained in the box with material left over from the manufacture of the baby wrap.

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.

The latest evaluation of the Baby Box scheme can be viewed here on gov.scot

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Tags: Community benefits, contracts, framework agreements, procurement, Public procurement, scotland's baby box, Scottish Procurement, Suppliers

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