5.3 Sourcing

One of the key aspects of sourcing and part of the procurement policy is to advertise the requirement and then subsequently run an open competition for award of contract.

Current regulations mean that the award of a contract without any advertising or competition may be challenged by aggrieved suppliers in the Sheriff Court or Court of Session, even where the contract is itself exempt from the detailed advertising and procedural requirements in the Scottish Regulations and or UK Directives.

Guidance from the Scottish Government states that it is for individual contracting bodies to decide whether advertising is required (and in what form) and to defend their decisions as necessary. Decisions which are documented and based on legitimate business needs and objective criteria are likely to be defensible.

Decisions which are not documented, are arbitrary or, which are based solely on convenience to the contracting body or on a long standing relationship with a particular supplier are unlikely to be defensible.

Whenever a 'genuine emergency' arises the exception rule, to the prescribed sourcing procedures, can be applied. The definition of 'genuine emergency' has, for the purposes of this Manual, been defined as; 'when an unforeseeable (not unforeseen) need has arisen'. It must be understood therefore that the application of this rule to support obvious planning weaknesses is not acceptable.

Business Units should note that all goods and services procured through centrally co-ordinated sources of supply (e.g. Government framework agreements or for example the Scottish Government contract for the provision of office supplies) have been the subject of competitive quotation or tendering exercises. The use of such sources obviates the need for Business Units to repeat such sourcing and competition exercises as responsibility for satisfying value-for-money audit rests with the Procurement Department.

(i)         As a first step the buyer(s) i.e. those to whom authority to purchase has been given, shall establish if the goods or services to be procured can be obtained through any of RoS’s centrally co-ordinated sources of supply. If so, then that source of supply should be used to satisfy the requirement, otherwise written justification for the departure from the expected practice will be required.

(ii)                 If the requirement cannot be obtained through (i) above then the buyer(s) shall establish if pertinent  Scottish Procurement collaborative contracts or UK National Government Procurement Service  public sector supplies agreements are in force. If such a source exists, then that source of supply should be used to satisfy the requirement, otherwise written justification for the departure from the expected practice will be required.

(iii)                If the results of the sourcing routines described in (i) and (ii) above prove unhelpful then requests for quotations or, in cases where the requirement is of a highly technical nature and/or expensive, competitive tender documents should be prepared and issued. In order to avoid a ”battle of forms” at a later date, a copy of the appropriate  RoS Terms and Conditions of Purchase must be issued with each written request for quotation or tender. Terms and conditions of Goods, Services, Consultancy, Goods and Services can be found here. 

(iv)               Any sourcing exercise will normally be undertaken by the Procurement Department, however in those exceptional cases where the Business Unit has been authorised to undertake their own sourcing and is requesting the use of a particular supplier they must attach documentation to their Pecos requisition to support this request. The documentation must include evidence of quotations or a business case to support the request to use a supplier without competition.

Note: When considering the acquisition of web hosted services, the following should be taken into consideration:

• Should the ‘purchase’ be considered as a Small Business Change and undertaken via the Programme Office
• Have the Design Authority been consulted with regard to security and technical fit
• Has Information Assurance been considered (see Section 5.7) and has a Privacy Impact Assessment been undertaken (see section 5.8)

Important:

It cannot be overstressed that non-procurement staff must not sign any agreement or contract or verbally commit or imply in any way to have committed RoS funds by whatever means to any potential supplier. Commitments of RoS funds can only authorised by the Procurement Department.