There have been a flurry of new developments in public procurement law in Scotland and we have provided a brief summary of these below. Please watch this space for further detail and more commentary on the changes!
1. Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015
The 2015 regulations were published on 22 December and are due to come into force on 18 April 2016. They will replace the existing 2012 regulations and are intended to transpose the new EU directive on public procurement into Scots law. These new regulations are the most significant change to procurement law in many years and public bodies will need to ensure that they are fully prepared for the new regime. We will be publishing further blogs on the new regulations in early 2016.
2. New EU Procurement Thresholds from 1 January 2016
The Scottish Government have just published a Scottish Procurement Policy Note (SPPN) providing details of the new thresholds which are applicable from 1 January. The threshold for contracts for supplies and services will be £164,176 and for works it will be £4,104,394. However, the Scottish Government has confirmed that, once the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015 come into force in April, a further SPPN will be published detailing the then applicable thresholds.
3. The Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014
The Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 (Commencement No. 2) Order 2015 was laid before the Scottish Parliament on 7 December 2015, and provides that certain sections of the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 will come into force on 11 January 2016. The relevant sections coming into force next month will allow the Scottish Government to publish statutory guidance on a range of matters including: the sustainable procurement duty, procurement of health or social care services, the preparation and publication of procurement strategies and annual procurement reports and guidance on the use of community benefit requirements in procurement exercises.
Certain sections of the Act have already come into force which led to the publication of statutory guidance on the selection of tenderers and award of contracts, which covers regulated procurements under the 2014 Act from 1 November this year.
This is an exciting time for those operating in the field of public procurement law and we would encourage you to keep in touch with us for further details and updates on developments in this area.
