Public Procurement and Property

Scottish Procurement quarterly vlog – June 2026

June 1, 2026 by No Comments | Category Procurement news, Scottish Procurement

We recently caught up with our Director, Nick Ford, to reflect on progress since our last update in February, and share some of the key achievements across Scotland’s public procurement landscape.

The conversation also looks ahead to what’s coming next, highlighting priorities and opportunities for Scotland’s procurement community in the months ahead.

You can watch the full update in the video below. A transcript is available at the bottom of the page.

You can explore the topics covered by Nick in more detail through the links and resources below:

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

Please email enquiries to scottishprocurement@gov.scot

Subscribe to our blog to keep up to date with the latest news across the procurement community.

Single speaker transcript, Nick Ford: 

Welcome to my second vlog of 2026.

I’d like to start off by reflecting on some of the progress and key achievements since my last update in February. And to give you a sense of what’s coming up for Scotland’s public procurement community.

By now, you’ll hopefully be aware of the outcome of the Scottish Government’s reshuffle following the Scottish parliamentary election, with the First Minister unveiling a refreshed Cabinet focused on delivering for Scotland.

These changes signal a renewed emphasis across key government portfolios, including those shaping public procurement, commercial policy and wider public service reform.

Scottish Procurement will play a central role in supporting this new ministerial team, helping to align priorities and maintain momentum across the sector in the months ahead.

With a clear mandate from the people of Scotland, the new cabinet is expected to move quickly, making early progress on priority commitments within the first 100 days whilst laying the foundations for longer term delivery.

In this context of renewed focus and early delivery, it is useful to reflect on the impact procurement is already making across Scotland and the strong position we are in to build on that momentum.

Through a continued focus on value, sustainability and innovation, procurement remains a key enabler in delivering a positive and lasting contribution to the economic, social and environmental wellbeing for people and communities right across Scotland.

You can see the full picture in our latest Annual Report on Procurement Activity in Scotland 2023 to 2024, but here are a few key highlights.

We’ve seen £17.5 billion of public procurement spend, generating £14.7 billion in economic activity and contributing £7.8 billion to Scotland’s GDP, also supporting 120,000 full-time equivalent jobs.

In May, we held our second Heads of Procurement meeting of the year, with the session focused entirely on AI. We heard from colleagues right across the public procurement sector about how they’re already using AI within their day to day procurement activity.

The examples really brought to life the opportunities AI presents to improve efficiency, enhance insights and support decision making.

At the same time, we also had an open discussion about the challenges, particularly around capability, confidence, data quality, and the policy and governance landscape.

It was a really positive session, and we’re now building on the momentum by establishing a new Digital and AI Forum sitting under the Public Procurement Group, this will support ongoing collaboration, shared learning and the spread of best practice across the public sector.

Alongside this, we’re also close to finalising our PPG objectives for the year, which are currently in the final stages of sign off. The high level themes have already been shared with the Heads of Procurement and the forum leads, and once approved, we’ll be publishing them on our PPG website.

Looking ahead, PPG has agreed three key priority areas to shape activity over the coming period.

Number one, a once for Scotland – strengthening national alignment in procurement, with a clear definition of what this means in practice.

Number two, digital, data and AI – setting national direction to improve how digital tools, data and AI are used to drive efficiency and transparency.

And number three, capability and workforce – building skills, capacity and resilience, with an early focus on improving access to learning and development.

Alongside these three strategic focuses, we continue to monitor wider market conditions and the pressures facing our customers. The last few weeks, we have seen significant activity to mitigate the impact of the inflationary pressures, notably – the spike in energy prices and increases in ICT product costs, including those linked to the memory capacity shortages.

In the case of energy, our strategy of buying energy well in advance of the period of consumption affords us a high degree of protection in this financial year.

I also joined the Procurement for Health event, Scotland’s flagship health procurement conference, as a panel member. It was a great opportunity to connect with colleagues from across the NHS, suppliers and partners. It also gave me the chance to highlight Scotland Innovates and some of the brilliant case studies coming through – from new diagnostic and digital marketing to innovations, redesigning services and improving outcomes.

I was keen to champion SMEs, who are driving so much of this innovation, and to stress the importance of making it easier for them to engage with the public sector. A strong theme throughout the day was transformation – across digital, AI, sustainability and regional collaboration. All focused on supporting Scotland’s health and care renewal.

As part of our SME and Third Sector Procurement Action Plan, we’ve committed to creating meaningful opportunities for engagement with SMEs and third sector organisations.

One of the key ways that we are doing this is through our roundtable events. Last year, we brought together representations from across 15 organisations with a range of sectors, creating a space for open and constructive discussion about the barriers and challenges that they face. The insights from these sessions have been invaluable, directly shaping the priorities and activity of our working group in year two of the plan.

We’ll be sharing a further update on this shortly, including feedback from stakeholders, and we remain committed to continuing this engagement. And I’m pleased that I’ll be hosting another roundtable event at the Supplier Development Programme’s 17th Meet the Buyer National event on the 2nd of June in Glasgow.

I’m really looking forward to connecting with organisations and hearing more about their experiences of engagement with public procurement in Scotland.

More broadly, our focus remains on putting public procurement at the heart of a sustainable economy to maximise value for the people of Scotland and supporting positive social, economic and environmental outcomes. This includes ongoing work such as our benchmark reviews, updates to national guidance and tools, and the development of case studies to promote consistency, transparency and continuous improvement across the Scottish public sector.

Over the last quarter, that’s included updates to our prompt payment guidance, refreshed our circular economy guidance and enhancements to our eLearning materials to just highlight a few.

By continuing to strengthen collaboration and share best practice, we’re supporting organisations across Scotland to maximise the impact of public sector investment.

Well, that’s all for now. Thanks for listening. If you’d like to stay up to date with the latest in public procurement across Scotland, please do subscribe to our blog or connect with us on social media.

Thank you.

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