Contract Notice 

Contract Notices should be used to advertise all Route 3 procedures. The only exception to this are:

• Use of the negotiated procedure without prior publication (only available in strictly defined and exceptional circumstances)
• In a Restricted Procedure, or Competitive Procedure with Negotiation, sub-central organisations can use a Prior Information Notice (PIN) if certain information is set out in the PIN. A sub-central Organisation is any Organisation which does not belong to Central Government or National Health Services.

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 and
• 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. In other circumstances, stating an indicative budget may make it difficult for an organisation to assess that the service represents value for money.

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.

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 and
• 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 (or the PIN if that is being used as a call for competition).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 Tender 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. 

You 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-Tender until you have received your publication reference number from FTS.

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

Prior Information Notice (PIN)

All Organisations may give advance notice of planned procurements.  This is done through the publication of a Prior Information Notice (PIN) which is not used as a means of calling for competition.

Contract Award 

Contract Award Readiness Checklist

Before a Procurement Officer awards a contract they should check the following points:

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

QUICKFIRE GUIDE Recommendation Report Contents

The report should contain reference to the following:

• Summary of the process to date
• Ensure any decisions for supplier disqualification have been fully documented and that the paperwork is available for inspection
• Recommendation of award & request for approval
• Selection Stage evaluation results (if not contained within previous report)
• Technical & commercial evaluation (including any whole life costing) together with details of any clarifications conducted benefits and savings available
• Details of any risks still present and mitigation plans
• Sustainability considerations (life-cycle costing, social, economic and environmental)
• Cyber Security Considerations
• Considerations in relation to Community Benefits in procurement exercises equal or greater than £4M
• Details on how the tender outcome will meet the requirements identified in the Commodity/Service Strategy

Once you have obtained approval you can notify both the successful and unsuccessful tenderers of the outcome, and they should be notified as soon as possible.

Information provided to tenderers must, where applicable, include the grounds for any decision:

• Not to conclude a Framework Agreement
• Not to award a contract that has been advertised;
• To recommence the procedure; or
• Not to implement a Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS).

Consideration must also be given to Planning, Sustainable Procurement and Risk Management throughout this stage of the Procurement Journey.

Using PCS

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

• 10Mb per document a maximum of 40Mb for the Procurement Officer; and
• 10Mb per document with a maximum of 30Mb for the Supplier

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

Using PCS-Tender 

If you use PCS Tender 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.