Public Procurement and Property

We have published SPPN 1/2023 on Free Trade Agreements

March 23, 2023 by Fiona McCaig No Comments | Category Scottish Procurement

We have published a new Scottish Procurement Policy Note 1/2023, to inform of the changes to Scottish procurement legislation and to Public Contracts Scotland (PCS) that will be made to implement the Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) between the UK and Australia, and the UK and New Zealand.

The UK-Australia FTA was signed on 16 December 2021 and the UK-New Zealand FTA was signed on the 28 February 2022. Like other FTAs, these have chapters which deal specifically with public procurement. These chapters set out detailed agreements on both coverage and the rules which must be followed.

For the most part, implementation of these FTAs will have little practical impact on the day-to-day activities of public procurement officials, but some changes to the procurement rules in Scotland will be needed.

This means bidders from Australia and New Zealand will be afforded the full rights set out in the procurement regulations in relation to contracts covered by those agreements. Changes will also be made to procurement rules in relation to: the use of Prior Information Notices as a call for competition; estimating the value of a contract; and terminating contracts.

We expect these changes to come into effect at the end of May. We will tell you the precise date when this is known. These rule changes will apply to all contracts, regardless of whether bids from Australia or New Zealand are expected.

Please forward enquiries to scottishprocurement@gov.scot

To find out more about Public Procurement in Scotland, please visit www.gov.scot/procurement

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Tags: policy note, procurement, Public Contracts Scotland, Public procurement, public sector, public sector procurement, Scottish Government procurement, Scottish Procurement, Scottish Procurement Policy Note, Scottish public sector, SPPN

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