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Market engagement

A Delegated Purchasing Officer (DPO) or procurement specialist will engage with the market on your behalf to gather offers from suppliers for digital products or services that meet your procurement requirements.

Early engagement

Your DPO or procurement specialist may look at engaging early with the market, before formally requesting that offers be made. Early engagement gives an opportunity for potential suppliers to learn what you want to buy so they can prepare in advance of the formal request for offers, known as an Invitation to Tender (ITT).

This early engagement may also help you understand how much a purchase may cost, which you can use to inform your business case and governance approval processes.

In going to market, your DPO or procurement specialist will look at:

  • innovation-focused routes - within the Scottish Government, CivTech provides a potential route to market where no known market solution exists
  • other options, such as negotiation, direct award, frameworks or competitions, where appropriate - you can find out more about procurement procedures within the Scottish public sector at Procurement Journey

Use of Scottish Government procurement frameworks to procure what you need

Frameworks are a method for procuring common products and services that may be quicker than other methods.

Frameworks can also lead to a reduction in bid costs and effort on behalf of suppliers, as lots of information is requested and tested at framework award level, rather than at the level of a single bid. 

Your DPO or procurement specialist will help you look at whether a ‘borrow’ or ‘outsource’ delivery model can be used – this means looking at current frameworks to see whether existing contracts and contracting mechanisms can be used to procure what you need.

When looking at existing frameworks, your DPO or procurement specialist will look into account a number of factors to evaluate which framework is most appropriate for your project or programme, including the framework’s: 

  • impact on your procurement and project timetable 
  • assurance criteria for suppliers, and whether these are sufficient for the needs of your project
  • market health and capacity, including range of suppliers 
  • suitability of contract terms 

You must use frameworks appropriately, and only procure products and services that are within the scope of any of the framework’s particular agreements. 

Framework managers within the Scottish Procurement and Property Directorate (SPPD) and your DPO or procurement specialist will provide decision-making support. 

If your DPO or procurement specialist recommends using a framework, you should read all the framework’s documents before going ahead with the framework as your procurement approach. You should also check with the framework provider that it meets their requirements, provides the necessary, relevant and proportionate protections and is suitable for the criticality and value of your product or service. Keeping up to date procurement pipelines will avoid the time pressures that can lead to inappropriate framework selection. 

A successful framework contract should be based around principles that align objectives, success measures, targets and incentives so as to enable joint work on improving value and reducing risk. This should then be combined with transparent and meaningful performance measurement and work allocation procedures. 

You can view a list of frameworks currently used by the Scottish Government, available for use by central government and the wider public sector, on gov.scot.

Dynamic Purchasing Systems 

A dynamic purchasing system (DPS) is a two stage procurement process, where suppliers submit an application to join and are evaluated against minimum selection criteria prior to being accepted to the DPS. The second stage uses a mini-competition process for specific procurement requests. 

Suppliers can apply to join a DPS at any point during its lifetime. This makes it an ideal route to market for buyers procuring specialist digital services and allowing relatively new suppliers access to public sector contracts. Suppliers who do not meet the selection criteria can reapply to join at any point. 

Dynamic purchasing systems must be run as a completely electronic process, as laid out under Regulation 35 of the Public (Contracts) Scotland Regulations 2015. 

A dynamic purchasing system follows a similar procurement process to that of a framework agreement. However a DPS offers some flexibility in the application process. Suppliers are able to join or leave the dynamic purchasing system at any time.

The digital technology and cyber services DPS is split into four lots: 

  • lot 1 – digital technology projects and services 
  • lot 2 – digital technology resources 
  • lot 3 – digital training services 
  • lot 4 – cyber security services 

Additional DPS exist for telephony and communication services and the internet of things.

CCS Frameworks 

The Crown Commercial Service (CCS) offers a number of framework options through which digital products and services can be procured. CCS frameworks offer:

  • a full set of standard contract schedules and terms & condition
  • the opportunity to significantly reduce the amount of time needed to finalise contracts post-competition – as full sets of standard contract schedules and terms & conditions are available through CCS frameworks, publishing a contract tailored to your particular project as part of the tender process is much quicker

Examples of CCS frameworks include G Cloud and the CCS contact registry.

Publishing contracts on PCS

For open procurements (procurements not conducted through a framework or Dynamic purchasing system) your DPO should advertise all regulated procurements (£50,000 or more for goods and services, £2 million or more for works contracts) on Public Contracts Scotland (PCS). For transparency, it is best practice to publish a contract notice for all contracts on PCS, regardless of value. The award of a contract or the conclusion of a framework agreement must also be published on PCS. Exemptions to these publication requirements apply in certain circumstances. For more information see regulation 33 and 51(6) of The Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015 and regulation 7(8) of The Procurement (Scotland) Regulations 2016.  For Research & Development services (e.g. procurements for innovative services) Pre-Commercial Procurement notices and Award notices should be published. 

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