Procurement activity: annual report 2023 to 2024

Footnotes

1. Links to the previous reports can be found here: 2017 to 2018, 2018 to 2019, 2019 to 2020, 2020 to 2021, 2021 to 2022, 2022 to 2023.

2. These four categories are identified and defined in more detail in the Public Procurement Strategy for Scotland 2023 to 2028.

3. The standardised data templates are documents that capture the minimum reporting requirements for annual procurement reports. They are considered a part of the annual procurement report. A link to these standardised data templates can be found in Annex A of the Scottish Procurement Policy Note for the 2022 to 2023 and 2023 to 2024 annual procurement reports.

4. For the purposes of this report, a “financial year” covers the period between 1 April and 31 March for most public bodies. However, some universities and colleges use a financial year from 1 August until 31 July.

5. Please note, this report covers only what was covered by public bodies’ annual procurement reports. For more information on public bodies’ strategies, please see The Lines Between’s report, Analysis of Public Body Procurement Reports & Strategies (2023 to 2024).

6. The 2014 Act defines what must be included in annual procurement reports. Further guidance is provided each year through Scottish Procurement Policy Notes (SPPNs). For the 2022 to 2023 and the 2023 to 2024 financial year, SPPN 2/2023 was the relevant source of guidance.

7. For more information on the Scottish Procurement Information Hub, please see DXC Technology’s article on the resource and how it is compiled.

8. More detail is available through the contract award notice on the Find a Tender website.

9. Data in the Hub relates to known procurement spend with suppliers that were classed as commercial organisations or as non-trade social care providers, and with whom individual public bodies spent £1,000 or more in aggregate spend in any given year.

10. For more information about the Public Procurement Group, please see the Scottish Government website.

11. Regulated contracts are those defined by the 2014 Act as being valued at £50,000 or more for goods or services, £2 million or more for works. The Scottish Government published a consultation in October 2025 seeking views on whether these thresholds should be amended for future exercises.

12. Spend with suppliers that were classed as commercial organisations or as non-trade social care providers, and with whom individual public bodies spent £1,000 or more in aggregate spend.

13. Suppliers’ SIC classification corresponds to their registered primary business activity only. This means that suppliers who deliver several different types of contracts will be listed to only one business sector. For the full list of SIC codes and the business types that fit under each code, please see the Companies House resource.

14. “Low value” refers to contracts below the World Trade Organization’s Government Procurement Agreement (“GPA”) threshold. This threshold varies between public body type, contract type, and over time in line with inflation. For more information, please see the Scottish Government’s information page on GPA thresholds.

15. Where supplier size is known, and where suppliers have registered to PCS with a Scottish-based business address.

16. Where supplier size is known.

17. Where supplier size and location is known.

18. Previous reports are available here: 2018-2019, 2019-2020, 2020-2021, 2021-2022, 2022-2023.

19. For more information about the development and use of Scottish Government Input-Output tables please see the Scottish Government website.

20. This definition can be found in the Scottish Government’s SME and third sector action plan 2024 to 2026.

21. Supplier location is based on their registered invoice address. This may not be reflective of where the parent organisation is based or where the contract is carried out.

22. The Companies Act 2006 defines turnover as ‘the amounts derived from the provision of goods and services, after deduction of (a) trade discounts, (b) value added tax, and (c) any other taxes based on the amounts so derived’. The Businesses in Scotland publication is an annual statistical estimate of the number of businesses operating in Scotland and a high level summary of their activity.

23. This is the definition provided in the procurement SME and third sector action plan 2024 to 2026.

24. Public procurement spend is considered to be in Scotland where suppliers have registered a Scottish-based business address.

25. The Equality Act 2010 defines as: “A person (P) has a disability if— (a) P has a physical or mental impairment, and (b) the impairment has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on P’s ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.”

26. There is no authoritative definition of ‘disadvantaged’. However, the EU Public Procurement Directive 2014/24/EU describes disadvantaged persons as: ‘The unemployed, members of disadvantaged minorities, or otherwise socially marginalised groups.’

27. These figures are based on analysis of the 122 annual procurement reports which detailed the number of regulated contracts awarded to supported businesses. Of those, 106 reported that no regulated contracts had been awarded to supported businesses in the reporting period.

28. For more information on the Standard Industrial Classification, please see the UK Government information page linked.

29. Data is only recorded on the primary business sector of a supplier. Suppliers who supply the Scottish public sector in more than one business sector have only their primary business sector recorded.

30. The statutory guidance to the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 lays out public bodies’ duties towards Fair Work First, and its benefits.

31. This figure was drawn from analysis of the 125 annual procurement reports submitted for analysis, 14 of which had not provided this data. The figure will likely reflect an element of double counting. This is because while each public body provides information on their number of unique suppliers, it is likely that at least some suppliers were awarded regulated contracts by more than one public body during that year; these suppliers would therefore be counted more than once.

32. The Scottish Procurement Policy Note active during the 2023 to 2024 financial year detailing prompt payment practices was SPPN 2/2022.

33. The Scottish Government’s requirements for prompt payment of invoices are laid out in the Scottish procurement policy handbook.

34. Deprivation statistics are calculated down to the level of ‘data zones’, of which there are 6,976 in Scotland.

35. This data is drawn from the Hub, SIMD data, and Business in Scotland datasets. This measure from the Business in Scotland dataset is not published elsewhere publicly.

36. For more information on the Scottish Government’s position on using public procurement to encourage community benefits. Please see our policy page on community benefits in procurement.

37. Equal treatment and non-discrimination in the public procurement context is defined within the Procurement equality duties.

38. The Sustainable Procurement Duty is included in the 2014 Act.

39. The Green House Gas Protocol (GHG) defines Scope 3 Emission as: “all indirect emissions (not included in scope 2) that occur in the value chain of the reporting company, including both upstream and downstream emissions.”

40. For more information on the Scottish Government’s position on transparency in public procurement, please see the policy guidance on “Public sector procurement”.

41. More information on the 2024 NASPO International Summit can be found on their event page.

42. The PPoT events during the 2023 to 2024 financial year brought together participants of graduate schemes in the Central Government, Health, Scottish Local Authority and Higher Education and Further Education sectors and included networking events at P4H (the NHS national procurement conference) and Procurex. These events were not publicly accessible and attendees were targeted from the participating organisations.

43. These figures are collated by Scottish Government procurement officials.

44. For more information on the ANIA’s use for diabetes research, please see the Scottish Government’s press release for this project.

45. One public body has not been included in this chart as they have been categorised as “other”.

46. Figures for SIMD are an estimate generated from comparisons between the Hub dataset and the SIMD dataset.

47. Figures for the 8-fold urban/rural classification are an estimate generated from comparisons between the Hub dataset and the Scottish Government’s urban/rural classification dataset.