Public Procurement and Property

Driving sustainable procurement outcomes

October 24, 2023 by Melissa Reilly No Comments | Category suppliers, Sustainable Procurement

As a follow up to the publication of Scotland’s journey of achieving sustainable procurement outcomes 2002-2022: independent review, we have interviewed key organisations representing and working with the business and the third sector in Scotland about sustainable procurement outcomes.

The video below features:

• The Business Services Association Scotland
• The Supplier Development Programme Scotland
• Glasgow Council for the Voluntary Sector

Subtitles are included in the video and a transcript is available at the bottom of this page.

Whilst the Independent Review looks back at the past 20 years, we are always looking to the future to drive forward the power of procurement. Earlier this year in April, we published the first-ever Public Procurement Strategy for Scotland.

This Strategy is a vision and a plan for our future that will provide a clear way forward that all public sector bodies can align to and deliver against.

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Multi-speaker Transcript:

Jackie: We represent lots of local businesses and voluntary organisations in Scotland, and one of the great ways we can contribute is we’ve been working with Scottish Government.

So that gives us a chance to share the views of our business members and actually understand the outcomes that Scottish Government is looking to achieve.

Gillian: The Supplier Development Programme’s key focus is to support Scottish SMEs, third sector and social enterprises in how to tender.

We’re a membership organisation with all 32 local authorities in Scotland along with 18 other public bodies and a number of construction companies.

Pauline: Glasgow Council for Voluntary Sector is part of the third sector interface in Glasgow and we support and represent a whole range of diverse third sector organisations that operate across the city.

Some enablers, I think, are we need to continue to build the capacity of the supplier community, in my case, third sector suppliers to access more public contracts and to collaborate better, to access bigger contracts that are of wider scope.

Jackie: Public procurement policies and strategies have really helped because now we’re expecting businesses to answer how we meet Fair Work, how we provide the living wage, and why we’re trying to provide social and community benefits.

Gillian: We help train the suppliers to understand the asks that are coming from Scottish Government through their policies for sustainable procurement.

How to answer those all important questions within the tender documents to enable them to reflect how their businesses are going to support that policy and deliver on them.

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

Please email enquiries to scottishprocurement@gov.scot

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Tags: SMEs, Suppliers, sustainable procurement, third sector, video

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