The Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 (Commencement No.2) Order 2015 was laid before the Scottish Parliament on 7 December 2015. The order will bring into force further sections of the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 on 11 January 2016. Earlier this year, other provisions of the Act were brought into force.
This order will enable statutory guidance to be produced for contracting authorities in relation to four areas of the 2014 Act:
- Guidance on the sustainable procurement duty (section 10)
- Guidance on the carrying out of regulated procurements relating to health or social care services (section 13)
- Guidance on the preparation and publication of procurement strategies and annual procurement reports (section 20). Under the Act, such guidance may cover consultation on preparation of a strategy, the form and content of strategies and reports, and the approval process for strategies. A model procurement strategy and model annual report also can be provided.
- Guidance on community benefit requirements (section 26). Such guidance may cover consultation to take place before a contracting authority determines whether or not to include community benefit requirements in a major contract, the information to include in a contract notice and award notice as to community benefit requirements, and the circumstances in which it would or would not be appropriate to include community benefit requirements.
This takes us a step closer to the Scottish Procurement reforms being fully in place, with more to come, namely implementing Regulations expected shortly for the 2014 EU Procurement Directives.
Disclaimer
The material contained in this article is of the nature of general comment only and does not give advice on any particular matter. Recipients should not act on the basis of the information in this e-update without taking appropriate professional advice upon their own particular circumstances.
