You should not disclose information provided by bidders that has been highlighted as confidential.  This could include but is not limited to technical or trade secrets and the confidential aspects of tenders.

You may wish to consider adding a requirement to ensure your organisation’s confidential information is protected throughout the procurement process.

It is helpful for you to highlight to the market at an early stage any contract requirements.  This includes your approach to addressing Fair Work practices in the procurement exercise. This should be included in the procurement documents, which invite suppliers to participate in the procurement exercise.

Organisations should ensure that:

• all relevant procurement documents make reference to Data Protection legislation; and
• their terms and conditions are up-to-date.

More detailed information can be found in Additional Resources.

If the contract will involve, support or rely on the digital processing of information, organisations should ensure that appropriate consideration is given to potential cyber risks and their management.

Further information on how to assess and manage cyber risks as part of the procurement process can be found in the Scottish public sector Guidance Note on Supplier Cyber Security. Buyers should also consider the guidance within SPPN 02/2020.

The Cyber Security Procurement Support Tool is no longer in use, and the Scottish Government instead advises that organisations implement appropriate cyber assurance mechanisms into their procurement processes.

If you have any questions, please contact:  cyberresilience@gov.scot

When developing your commodity/service strategy, you should access the contracts register for your organisation.  This will assist in evaluating existing contract arrangements, including contract value.

The Contracts Register module in Public Contracts Scotland (PCS) provides the facility for buying organisations to operate a register of all contracts they have in place.  A public register of contracts meets the obligations of Section 35 of the Procurement Reform Act (Scotland) 2014.

If you do not use PCS for producing a contract register, you still must produce a publicly available one.

If using PCS-Tender, the Buyer should upload the appropriate slides to the appropriate task within PCS-Tender.

Organisations should determine if data processing activities are relevant to your procurement exercise.

Contracts that are currently subject to the Data Protection Act 1998 are also likely to be subject to DPR.

Organisations must ensure:

• current and future procurement exercises are compliant with DPR.  This includes contracts that began before the legislation came into force
• all relevant procurement documents make reference to the new legislation.

More detailed information on DPR can be found in Additional Resources. 

Please note that if you withhold the contract value from a contract award notice this information may still be requested from your organisation via the Freedom Of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA).

The FOISA equivalent test is set much higher than the Contracts Register i.e. publication would have to, or be likely to:

• cause substantial prejudice, and
• the impact to public interest in withholding the information would have to outweigh the public interest in releasing it.

Detailed contracts register user guidance can be found in PCS.

For Care and Support Services procurements, Buyers must use Route 3 Develop Strategy stations and sub-stations to develop their service strategy and plan their approach to the procurement. 

Contract Notice 

Contract Notices must be used to advertise all Route 3 procedures. Exceptions to this include:

• use of the negotiated procedure without prior publication (only available in strictly defined and exceptional circumstances)
• a defined list of Care and Support Services contracts between £50,000 and the light touch regime theshold

The Contract Notice must contain the minimum and specific requirements for your procurement exercise.

Indicative Budget

You may choose to:

• indicate the available budget for delivering the service in question;
• specify the outcomes desired
• invite providers to submit proposals for achieving the outcomes within the resources available.

Stating an indicative budget ensures that bidders' tenders for delivering the service are affordable. This may be appropriate if, for example, a procurement exercise fails and the organisation moves to negotiation with suppliers.

Establishing a Timetable for the Procurement Process

This is particularly important if there is an expectation that suppliers will submit consortia bids to allow discussions between suppliers to take place.

With the exception of the scenarios stated in Contract Notice section above, all Contract Notices must be published on Public Contracts Scotland (PCS). 

PCS is the national advertising portal which provides suppliers with free access to contract opportunities. It guides you:

• through the process of creating a Notice on its website
• automatically creates a Notice on the Find a Tender Service

If using PCS-T or the SPD (Scotland) word document,  you must set out the specific requirements and minimum standards for your procurement.  These must be relevant and proportionate and included in your Contract Notice. This is not necessary if using the online SPD (Scotland) Module on PCS as the relevant information is contained within this module.

If Using OJEU/TED:

If your procurement was advertised before 11 p.m. on 31 December 2020 (or is a call off from a Framework Agreement or a Dynamic Purchasing System that commenced before this date) you will receive a PCS alert after you have submitted the Contract Notice for publication on PCS.  You will also receive a separate mail from Tenders Electronic Daily (TED) with your temporary OJEU reference number.

Once your Notice is published in the OJEU, TED will send you a permanent OJEU publication number.  You must retrospectively include your online SPD (Scotland) with this permanent OJEU number if using the PCS Module.

If Using FTS:

If your procurement was advertised after 11 p.m. on 31 December 2020 you will receive an FTS email after you have submitted the Contract Notice for publication on PCS. 

Your Contract Notice must contain details of how bidders can access your procurement documentation.

From the date you publish your Notice you must make your Procurement Documents available:

• on the internet;
• in unrestricted and full direct access form;
• free of charge

The Regulations define ‘procurement documents’ very widely.  This includes all documents related to the procurement i.e. including technical specifications, terms and conditions and tender documents to be used at subsequent stages

In practical terms, it is not always possible to have all documents available at the start of your procurement exercise.   Only in an Open Procedure are you required to have  the ITT available from the outset.  For all other procedures you must provide sufficiently precise information.  This will allow bidders to understand the nature and scope of your requirement and decide whether to request to participate.

PCS-T Publication

Procurement documents must not be published in PCS-T until you have received your publication reference number from FTS.

The procurement documents should be published in PCS-T on the same day of whichever of the above events occurs first.

Contract Award 

Contract Award Readiness Checklist

Before a buyer awards a contract they should check the following points:

Blank rows are provided for your use e.g. to add additional checklist items.

Using PCS

If uploading Procurement Documents to PCS file size restrictions  apply.  These are:

• 10Mb per document a maximum of 40Mb for the buyer;
• 10Mb per document with a maximum of 30Mb for the Supplier

If you are using PCS-T, attachments cannot be added to the Contract Notice on PCS. You must add your documents to PCS-T.

Using PCS-T

If you use PCS-T you must provide time limits for the receipt of tenders (bearing in mind statutory minimums).

Mixed procurements that contain any activity within the scope of the Defence and Security Regulations or the Utilities Directive  must  refer to their relevant legislation. Such procurement exercises do not come under the guidance of the Procurement Journey.

Where a procurement consists of a mix of activities:

• the main subject of the contract needs to be determined.  This will establish which procurement rules apply e.g. a procurement with a goods and a works element, which has the provision of goods as the main subject matter, should be treated as a goods procurement exercise. (It is important to focus on what the main subject is i.e. there could be a contract with more goods supplied, however, the works element may still be the main subject/purpose of the contract or vice versa.) It is important to note that in this case, the value of the relative spend is not the only factor in identifying the main subject
• partly services (including Care and Support Services and those detailed in Schedule 3, and partly goods: the main subject of the contract is determined by which of the services or goods has the highest estimated value
• Care and Support Services and those listed in Schedule 3 and partly for other services: the main subject of the contract is determined by which of the services has the highest estimated value.

Lessons learned should be captured at planned points and trigger events, including:

Planned Points

• End of mobilisation / transition phase
• Annual or major performance reviews
• Key contract milestones
• Contract closure or exit

Trigger Events

• Significant performance failure or service disruption
• Major contract variation or scope change
• Commercial dispute or escalation
• Supplier financial distress or ownership change
• External audit, assurance or ministerial interest

Below is an example of some of the roles who may be responsible for capturing lessons learned at the relevant stage of a contract. 

The roles you include should be proportionate and relevant to your contract and Organisation:

Senior Responsible Owner (SRO)

• Ensures lessons learned activity is undertaken
• Champions a learning culture
• Approves final lessons learned outputs

Contract Manager

• Leads the lessons learned process
• Coordinates input from stakeholders
• Ensures findings are documented and shared

Commercial / Procurement Teams

• Provide structured challenge and commercial insight
• Ensure learning feeds into future procurement exercises
• Maintain organisational lessons learned repositories

Suppliers

• Contribute openly and constructively
• Share their own lessons and improvement actions
• Participate in joint reviews where appropriate

Preparation

Before undertaking a lessons learned review:

• Define the scope (what period, phase or issue is being reviewed)
• Identify participants (contract team, users, finance, legal, supplier)
• Gather evidence, such as:
  • Performance reports and KPIs
  • Risk and issue logs
  • Change control records
  • Financial and commercial data
  • Audit or assurance findings

Structured Review Approach 

Use a standard structure to ensure consistency and comparability. Reviews should typically consider:

Contract Strategy and Design

• Were objectives, outcomes and success measures clear?
• Was the risk allocation appropriate?
• Were assumptions realistic?

Mobilisation and Transition

• Was mobilisation adequately planned and resourced?
• Were roles, responsibilities and governance clear?
• Were dependencies understood and managed?

Supplier Performance and Relationship

• How effective was supplier performance management?
• Were issues identified and addressed early?
• Was the relationship collaborative but appropriately robust?

Commercial and Financial Management

• Were pricing, incentives and payment mechanisms effective?
• How well were variations and change managed?
• Were value for money and affordability maintained?

Risk, Resilience and Assurance

• Were risks identified, mitigated and monitored effectively?
• How resilient was the service and supply chain?
• Did governance and assurance arrangements work as intended?

Skills and Capability

• Did the contract team have the right skills and capacity?
• Was support accessed when required?

Lessons learned only add value if they result in real change.

Action Planning

• Assign ownership for each improvement action
• Set timescales and success measures
• Link actions to existing improvement or capability plans

Integration into Business-as-Usual

Lessons should inform:

• Future procurement strategies and business cases
• Contract management plans and templates
• Risk management and assurance approaches
• Training and capability development
• Standard terms, conditions and commercial models

 Internal Sharing

• Store lessons learned in a central, searchable repository
• Share summaries with procurement, commercial and assurance teams
• Use anonymised case studies where appropriate

Cross-Organisation and Sector Learning

For significant contracts, consider:

• Sharing learning through sector forums or Centres of Expertise
• Contributing to Scottish Government or public sector guidance updates
• Supporting peer learning across organisations

• Lessons learned activity should be visible within governance structures
• Completion and follow-up actions should be monitored

For Care and Support Services, please read the Care and Support Services Lessons Learned Guidance, which can be found at the bottom of this page.