Publication - FOI/EIR release

Office Equipment Framework Agreement, documentation and submission information: FOI release

Published: 11 February 2019
Directorate: Scottish Procurement and Property Directorate
Topic: Public sector
FOI reference: FOI/19/00084
Date received: 10 January 2019
Date responded: 7 February 2019

Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.

Information requested

The following documentation [for the Office Equipment Framework Agreement].

[1] Formal Tender Documentation

[2] Price/Quality scores for current suppliers on the Framework.

[3] Quality submission of highest scoring tenderer.

[4] Framework Agreement renewal date.

Response

In response to your request, I enclose the following documents:

[1] Scottish Procurement’s National Framework for Office Equipment Invitation to Tender documents
[2] Price/Quality scores for current suppliers on the Framework.
[3] Quality submission of highest scoring tenderer.

Commentary on the information release

In response to your point 2, the Price/Quality scores for current suppliers on the Framework are provided in Annex A. Please note, this is not a ranked framework.

In response to point 3, the highest scoring tenderer is Konica Minolta. The tender document contains personal information, detailed cost information and trade secrets (such as software tools and elements of methodologies) and as such, some details have been redacted to protect the commercial interests of the tenderer. Further information is provided in Annex B.

In response to your point 4, the current framework expiry date is 2 June 2019 and there is the option to extend for two further 12 month periods, giving a maximum contract duration of four years, ending 2 June 2021. The decision on whether to extend the framework or has not yet been taken.

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. You are free to use it for your own purposes, including any non-commercial research you are undertaking and for the purposes of news reporting. Any other re-use, for example commercial publication, would require the permission of the copyright holder. Most documents supplied by the Scottish Government will have been produced by government officials and will be Crown Copyright. You can find details on the arrangements for re-using Crown Copyright material on the OPSI website at:

http://www.opsi.gov.uk

Information you receive which is not subject to Crown Copyright continues to be protected by the copyright of the person, or organisation, from which the information originated. You must ensure that you gain their permission before reproducing any third party (non Crown Copyright) information.

ANNEX A

Supplier Name	Commercial scores (out of 40)	Technical Envelope Weighting	Total Combined scores (out of 100)
Annodata Limited	36.88	39.43	76.31
Canon (UK) Limited	33.11	43.98	77.09
Capital Document Solutions Ltd	35.74	44.03	79.77
Konica Minolta UK Ltd	27.07	47.12	74.19
Ricoh UK Ltd.	28.03	46.50	74.52
The Danwood Group Ltd	40.00	42.52	82.52
Xerox (UK) Ltd	28.36	43.06	71.42

ANNEX B

REASONS FOR NOT PROVIDING INFORMATION

An exemption applies

An exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (personal information) applies to some of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party, i.e. names and contact details of individuals, and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Schedule 1 to the Data Protection Act 1998. This exemption is not subject to the ‘public interest test’, so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption.

An exemption applies, subject to the public interest test

An exemption under section 33(1)(b) of FOISA (commercial interests) applies to some of the information requested. This exemption applies because disclosure of this particular information would, or would be likely to, prejudice substantially the commercial interests of Konica Minolta Ltd. Disclosing this information would be likely to give the Konica Minolta’s competitors an advantage in future similar tendering exercises which would substantially prejudice their ability to submit competitive tenders and so could significantly harm their commercial business.

This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption. We recognise that there is a public interest in disclosing information as part of open and transparent government, and to help account for the expenditure of public money. However, there is a greater public interest in protecting the commercial interests of companies that tender for Scottish Government frameworks, to ensure that we are always able to obtain the best value for public money.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.