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Scottish Government continues journey to sustainable procurement

Following the publication of Scotland’s journey of achieving sustainable procurement outcomes 2000-2022 in an independent review, the Scottish Government has launched a corresponding video series. The second instalment focuses on the meaning and importance of sustainable procurement and community benefits.

Recently published, a report on Scotland’s journey of achieving sustainable procurement outcomes 2000-2020: independent review highlights links between community wealth building and sustainable procurement.

In this review, the Scottish Government has committed to encouraging and championing the embedding of sustainable procurement across Scottish and local government. To achieve this, the Scottish Government are prioritising embedding community benefits and sustainable procurement into expenditure.

What are sustainable procurement and community benefits?

The Sustainable Procurement Duty (Scotland) 2014 defines sustainable procurement as the requirement to consider how the social, environmental and economic wellbeing of the national and local authority area can be improved or create community benefits.

The Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 includes the recruitment and training of individuals from the local authority to be a community benefit.

In line with the Act, all public sector contracting authorities are required to consider sustainability and community benefits for regulated procurement where the contract meets the £4 million threshold. However, the public sector has a duty to take sustainability and community benefits into consideration for lower value contracts.

SDP's key role: supporting sustainable procurement and community benefits

As outlined in the Sustainable Procurement Duty (Scotland) 2014, the Supplier Development Programme (SDP) aligns itself with sustainable procurement and community benefits by assisting micro, small and medium businesses in the process of becoming tender ready for public procurement.

SDP offers suppliers free training on community benefits in "2.5 Responding to Tender Policy Requirements - Power of Procurement" course, to define what community benefits are, and ideas for and examples of community benefits that suppliers could implement into their businesses.

On the buyer side, SDP offers Corporate Membership which is recognised as a community benefit by the public sector in Scotland.

Meet the Buyer, which is officially partnered by Scottish Government, is also a sustainable way that larger primary contractors can deliver a highly measurable community benefit.

Meet the Buyer offers the opportunity to take a sponsorship package to support the public sector and take a paid exhibition to engage with suppliers about upcoming supply chain opportunities and open up community wealth building opportunities.

Interested primary contractors are encouraged to contact info@sdpscotland.co.uk for more information on exhibiting at Meet the Buyer 2023.