News

Meet the Buyer 2020 Round-up: Fife Council

Fife Council promotion for Meet the Buyer 2020: Live Virtual Event

On 2 June, the Supplier Development Programme (SDP) organised virtual activities to mark the occasion of what would have been the 12th annual Meet the Buyer event. While the face-to-face event was postponed, SDP carried out a “Twitter Takeover” of its account with buyers from Fife Council, East Renfrewshire Council, South Ayrshire Council and Scottish Government Procurement. This social media activity was complemented by two free SDP tender training webinars on Dynamic Purchasing Systems and Frameworks with Scotland Excel, and a “how-to” interactive session on using Public Contracts Scotland, the national public sector tender portal for Scotland. This round-up outlines what was said during Fife Council's Twitter Takeover of the SDP Twitter account as part of Meet the Buyer 2020: Live Virtual Event activities.

Fife Council used the time on the SDP Twitter account to discuss the topic, “Fife Means Business: How to Engage with Fife Council and Explore Community Benefits.” Dot Smith, Economic Adviser and SDP Rep for Fife Council, was joined by Derek Hamilton, Category Manager.

Opening Tweets

Within its introductory tweets, Fife Council received the first reply with a question regarding a PIN's timeline for an Invitation to Tender (ITT).

Fife Council's Supplier Guide

Fife Council then turned to promoting its supplier guide, which provides handy information on tendering processes for new and current suppliers to the local authority.

Call for Questions

Fife Council asked for questions, and a supplier responded!

A second supplier also posted a question to Fife Council.

Promotion of the Supplier Development Programme

A free SDP webinar on Frameworks & Dynamic Purchasing Systems (DPS) was promoted by Fife Council during its hour-long participation in the Twitter Takeover of the SDP account, which ran concurrently.

Fife Council's Contracts Register

The team from Fife Council promoted where to find its Contracts Register, which suppliers can utilise to forward plan upcoming tenders.

Another question was posted by a supplier, in response. Colleagues asked the supplier to get in touch directly, to specifically discuss the query, just like normal practice at a face-to-face Meet the Buyer event.

Business Support

The team from Fife then tweeted about the business support available to local businesses through Economic Development and Business Gateway.

Dot Smith from Fife Council is well known to love a hashtag, and her enthusiasm shone through in the next tweet during the Twitter Takeover.

Community Benefits

Fife Council turned to the extremely important part of overall value within tenders for larger projects: Community Benefits.

An example highlighted by the team included the creation of "Pallets by Design" as a joint initiative between Fife Council and Light and Energy Distribution Limited, which gifted pallets to eight secondary schools located throughout Fife, who in turn challenged second year pupils to design and create an item made primarily from those pallets.

The team also highlighted a few other examples of community benefits that have been delivered as part of contracts with the local authority, which contributed to the overall value suppliers promised to deliver as part of their tenders.

Fife and Tayside

Fife Council works closely with neighbouring local authorities including Angus Council, Dundee City Council and Perth and Kinross Council. Suppliers should be aware of upcoming collaborative tender opportunities, which will be published on Public Contracts Scotland.

Final Tweets

Fife Council asked if there were any final questions before finishing its hour of participation in SDP's Twitter Takeover, as part of the Meet the Buyer 2020: Live Virtual Event.

Working in partnership with the Supplier Development Programme, Fife Council will host the first ever SDP Bidding Masterclass. This full-day workshop covers the key areas suppliers need to be familiar with for successful tendering for public sector and supply chain opportunities. The sessions during the day will focus heavily on practical techniques, checklists and templates that participants will be able to apply immediately to improve tendering performance in their own organisations. Up-to-date information on current tendering rules and procedures will underpin all sessions. As this training is geared to SME suppliers that are already actively tendering for contracts, participants must have completed one or more Level 1 SDP workshops or webinars as a minimum. It is suitable for SMEs and third sector organisations in all business sectors that are already registered with the Supplier Development Programme. Once more restrictions are lifted in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic in Scotland, this Masterclass will be rescheduled to take place in Fife.

Fife Council made the point that it is open for business after the Twitter Takeover, and Dot and Derek shared their direct contact details for further enquiries.

Dot Smith and Derek Hamilton of Fife Council then turned control of the SDP Scotland Twitter account over to the team at East Renfrewshire Council.

Analytics

During one hour, Fife Council opened the Twitter Takeover on the topic, "Fife Means Business: How to Engage with Fife Council and Explore Community Benefits." During one hour, Fife Council sent 31 tweets from the SDP Scotland Twitter account during Meet the Buyer 2020: Live Virtual Event. The tweets earned 10,664 impressions (the number of times users saw a Tweet on Twitter) and 301 engagements (total number of times a user interacted with a Tweet). Fife Council's tweets earned nine retweets, 58 likes and 10 replies.

Further Information

The 2021 Meet the Buyer event is scheduled to take place on 8 June 2021 at the EICC. For more information, contact the Supplier Development Programme by email at info@sdpscotland.co.uk.

Share this page

Create an account

If you’re planning to do business with the public sector, registering with SDP is a must. Learn more about why you should register, or log in to your account now.

Register now

Events calendar

March 2024
SuMTuWThFSa
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31

View more events

SDP Scotland logo Loading