Procurement - use of consultants: guidance

Procurement requirements

DPA is the permission given to a member of staff which allows them to enter into a legally binding contract on behalf of the Scottish Ministers with a supplier of goods, services and works, including the purchase of consultancy or professional services. It is different and separate from Budgetary Authority. The individual with DPA will determine the route to market e.g. if an existing framework agreement can be used.  Further information on DPA can be found on Scottish Government Procurement Policy Manual.

Note: DPA must not to be confused with Budgetary or Financial Authority.

The procurement process requires that suppliers must disclose in their quote/tender documentation whether they, or a consultant proposed to work on the contract, have ever been an employee of the SG within the last 2 years.

Note: Where this is the case the consultant concerned must obtain Business Appointments Approval, which is dealt with by Human Resources (HR) Shared Service Centre. HR retains a register of those ex-staff who have applied for approval through the business appointment rules and will consider new applications and/or review existing records to assess whether approval ought to be sought before the consultant can start work.

A supplier quoting/tendering to provide services must not be disqualified on the basis of a consultant having been employed by the SG in the last 2 years. However, the consultant concerned may be excluded from the project concerned should the business appointments approval be refused or approved with specified conditions.

The Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 (2014 Act) requires all contracts for goods and services with a value of £50,000 or more, and all contracts for works with a value of £2,000,000 or more, to be published in the organisation’s contract register. Further information on what a contract register must contain can be found in section 35 of the 2014 Act.

Effective management of consultancy requires management of all aspects of the relationship between the consultants and the SG. This will ensure delivery of a cost-effective service which meets the contractual agreement i.e. the work required is completed on time, within budget and to specification. The Procurement Journey provides a step-by-step guide to buying goods and services , including effective contract management. For guidance relating to construction, please refer to the Client Guide to Construction Projects, specifically the Construction Procurement Handbook.

On completion of the assignment/contract, the contract manager must formally sign it off and confirm in writing that they are satisfied that the consultants have properly fulfilled their responsibilities before final payments are approved. The DPO must also complete a project report for senior management, covering the conduct of the assignment and consultants, the quality of the work they provided and the analysis and recommendations made, the extent to which the envisaged benefits/objectives are likely to be achieved, any additional benefits derived, and the total costs of the contract. A post project review template is available at Annex C.

Financial reporting requirements

Section 31(1) and (2) of the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 requires public bodies to publish a statement of any external consultancy expenditure they have incurred during that financial year as soon as is reasonably practicable after the end of each financial year.

It is essential that the SG is able to track expenditure on consultancy through Oracle Cloud to provide accurate reports on consultancy expenditure within SG, and to enable the SG to respond quickly and accurately to requests through Ministerial Correspondence, Parliamentary Questions (PQs) and FOI. It is therefore important to ensure that the relevant contract and expenditure can be correctly identified on Oracle Cloud System as the type of external consultancy services being procured.

The correct procurement category code used in Oracle Cloud System will be dependent on the nature of the consultancy spend, but a code that indicates that it is consultancy spend and the type of consultancy spend must be selected.

To find an appropriate procurement code, please use the following link to download the ‘Procurement Category Code List (UNSPSC)’. This document provides all relevant codes.

Note: The ‘Procurement Category Code List (UNSPC) will be updated regularly, please refer to this document each time to ensure the code is still correct.