Ministers open new public procurement consultation

A consultation on further new public procurement rules for Scotland has been launched by Scottish ministers, as three European Union directives have given rise to a further review of the rules.

The directives, known as the Public Procurement Directive, the Utilities Directive and the Concessions Directive – of which the first is the most important – have to be implemented in domestic law by 18 April 2016, but ministers are aiming to have the rules in force in Scotland later this year.

Some of the changes introduced by the directives are mandatory, but with others there is a choice about whether to, or how best to, implement further change, and these elements are the main focus of the consultation.

For example, "appropriate measures" have to be taken to ensure that businesses comply with environment, employment and social laws when they are working on a public contract. The consultation states the Government's preference, rather than simply making a rule that individual public bodies have to make sure this happens, for specifying in the legislation that all public bodies must have clauses in their contracts that require contractors to comply with all relevant law and collective agreements, and which allow the body to end a contract if the contractor does not meet these requirements.

Further, whereas the directives apply to higher value public contracts, the consultation also asking for views about new rules and guidance for lower value contracts.

It also considers elements of the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014, elements of which have yet to be further described in Scottish regulations or guidance.

Click here to view the consultation. The deadline for responses is 30 April 2015.