Public Procurement and Property

Construction and Supported Businesses

May 5, 2023 by Melissa Reilly No Comments | Category BASE, Construction, Scottish Procurement, supported businesses

We’re pleased to welcome a guest blog from Alistair Kerr, Chairman of BASE Scotland:

Royal Strathclyde Blindcraft Industries (RSBi), City Building Construction College & BASE Scotland hosted a visit from Morag Angus, Chief Surveyor and Deputy Director Property & Construction Scottish Government. Morag was joined by Graham Porteous, Head of Construction Procurement Policy & Clare Paterson, Principal Construction Advisor at the visit.

Morag Angus commented: “It was great to meet and learn from inspirational teams providing employment and training to their students and staff for whom this is life-changing.”

City Building is one of Scotland’s largest construction companies, providing a wide range of construction, maintenance and manufacturing services. They employ more than 2,000 staff and are one of Scotland’s largest employers of apprentices with currently around two hundred.

City Building’s Manufacturing Division, Royal Strathclyde Blindcraft Industries (RSBi), is Europe’s largest Supported Business and one of the UK’s most successful social enterprises. RSBi is located in a specially adapted factory in the Springburn area of Glasgow and more than 50% of RSBi’s staff have a disability.

The group had a tour of the RSBi marketing suite, a full tour of the RSBi manufacturing facility, met with staff and had the opportunity to view the building and assembling of the products that are manufactured to support the construction sector in Scotland. This followed a visit to the newly opened City Building Construction College and meeting with the staff and apprentices currently working towards industry recognised qualifications in plumbing, painting and decorating, electricians & joiners. The visit also included a detailed overview of the renewable technologies being used in the construction of the new facility.

A sincere note of thanks to all the team at RSBi, Training staff and Apprentices we met including Ben Kerr, RSBi Manager, Ronnie Regan Interim Head of Operational Support & Lynsey Chambers, Training College Manager for hosting and facilitating the visit.

An additional thank you to Lesley Quinn, Divisional Director, Corporate Affairs, City Building Glasgow & David Lyon, PA to Head of Property and Construction Scottish Government for the logistics and planning for the visit.

We met some truly inspirational people including apprentices making their way in the world and working around multiple barriers to contribute in their local communities to build better lives for themselves and indeed the lives of their families.

The group agreed a number of Construction related actions and Political engagement opportunities to support Scottish Government Sustainable Procurement Policy ambitions in developing opportunities for SME’s, Third Sector & Supported Businesses aligned to the development of the National Construction Frameworks for Scotland and the recent publication of first Public Procurement Strategy for Scotland (2023 – 2028).

More information on the use of Supported Businesses is available in the Scottish Government Supported Businesses framework.

Public bodies are able to reserve contracts for Supported Businesses under the public procurement rules in Scotland.

For further information on public procurement in Scotland please visit www.gov.scot/procurement

Please email enquiries to scottishprocurement@gov.scot

Follow us online:

Tags: BASE, Construction, supported business

Comments