Scottish Government’s Contract Register on the Public Contracts Scotland: FOI release

Information requested

Please provide a complete list of all direct awards (single tender actions) made in the 2024/25 financial year, including the full text of the justification recorded for each award.

Response

I enclose, at Annex A, a copy of the information you requested. The ‘recorded justification’ provided reflects the reason for approval as recorded in the Non-Competitive Action (NCA) database at the time each decision was taken.

It might be helpful to explain that it is Scottish Government policy that goods, services, and works must be bought by genuine and effective competition, unless there are exceptional reasons not to do so. Therefore, buying goods, services or works without competition needs approval before any purchase is made.

Non-competitive action (NCA) is the term the Scottish Government uses to describe the awarding of a contract directly to a specified supplier without competition. The decision on whether to authorise a request for NCA is made on a case-by-case basis, considering the appropriateness of NCA, and obligations under procurement law. The relevant legal tests are determined by the estimated value of the contract:

• Goods and services contracts worth less than £50,000, and works contracts worth less than £2 million are unregulated. This means that procurement legislation does not apply; 
• Goods and services contracts worth between £50,000 and £135,018, and works contracts worth between £2 million and £5,193,000 are regulated by the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014. Relevant tests relating to NCAs are set out in Regulation 6 of The Procurement (Scotland) Regulations 2016;
• Contracts worth more than these amounts are subject to The Public Contract (Scotland) Regulations 2015 relevant tests relating to NCAs are set out in Regulation 33.

NCAs for new contracts with an estimated value of over £10,000 (excluding VAT), need to be approved by officials with appropriate delegated procurement approval authority within the Scottish Government’s Scottish Procurement and Property Directorate (SPPD). 

Information recorded in relation to any NCA decision made by SPPD sets out the applicable legislation, as shown in the final column of the table in Annex A.

NCA requests for new contracts with an estimated value of under £10,000 (excluding VAT) are approved by officials in the relevant business area of Deputy Director grade, or higher. Business areas approving NCA requests under £10,000 make SPPD aware of these decisions in order that they can be recorded.

The table in Annex A lists cases where approval was given in response to NCA requests in financial year 2024/25. Please note that approval of a request for NCA does not necessarily mean that a contract is subsequently put in place. Therefore, it is possible that some of the approved NCAs listed in Annex A did not proceed to contract award.

All regulated procurements (£50,000 and over for goods/services; £2 million and over for works) awarded by the Scottish Government can be found on Public Contracts Scotland. All of the Scottish Government’s regulated contracts are listed in its Contracts Register. In addition to regulated contracts, the Scottish Government aims to voluntarily publish details of all its contracts over £5,000 in its Contracts Register. Instructions on how to access and navigate the Public Contracts Register are attached in Annex B.

About FOI

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

FOI 202600517886 - Information released - Annex A & Annex B

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