Procurement Profile: Scottish Government

The Scottish Government - as put by GOV.UK - "is responsible for most of the issues of day-to-day concern to the people of Scotland, including health, education, justice, rural affairs, and transport."

To help fulfil its devolved responsibilities, the Scottish Government has spent approximately £7.93 billion with suppliers from January 2016 to August 2021.

Using Tussell's market intelligence platform, this profile digs into the Scottish Government's procurement profile, covering its:

• Spend

• Contracts

• Suppliers

• Frameworks

• Sector Case-Studies (IT, Consulting & Facilities Management)

Find our other Procurement Profiles here:

• Department for Transport
• Department for Work and Pensions
• Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy
• Department of Health and Social Care
• Ministry of Justice
• Ministry of Defence
• Home Office
• HM Revenue & Customs

From January 2016 - August 2021,* the Scottish Government spent approximately £7.93 billion with suppliers across over 32,800 trasanctions.

This made the Scottish Government the 19th largest public body by total spend across this period - one place below the Welsh Government, and one place below Birmingham City Council - and the 2nd largest in Scotland, behind Transport Scotland (at £9.79 billion)

Excluding incomplete data from 2021, the above analysis - produced within the Tussell platform - shows that the Scottish Government is spending more and more with suppliers each year, peaking in 2020 at £1.8 billion.

Across the covered period, the Scottish Government's largest suppliers by spend were:**

* As of writing, this is the latest date the Scottish Government has published its invoices.

** This ranking excludes ILF Scotland and Historic Environment Scotland

From 2016 - 2021, the Scottish Government awarded at least 1,160 contract awards at a total value of £2.62 billion.

Since 2016, the annual total value of contracts awarded by the Scottish Government has varied considerably. The total volume of contracts awarded, however, has followed a considerable rise, growing 3.5x from 2020 to 2021, and 4.8x from 2019 to 2020.

The Scottish Government's largest contract awards across this period were:

From January 2016 - December 2021, the Scottish Government awarded contracts to at least 434 suppliers.*

By total contract award value, the Scottish Government's top suppliers across this period were:

The suppliers with whom the Scottish Government awarded contracts to most frequently were:

* This figure includes subsidiaries.

Ever wondered which frameworks the Scottish Government uses?

Of the roughly 1,161 contracts awarded by the Scottish Government from 2016 - 2021, at least 74 - or 6% - were call-offs from a framework.

Using Tussell's frameworks coverage, we can see the total value of these call-offs sat at £70.6 million, and spanned 18 frameworks.

This relatively low number of call-offs suggests that the Scottish Government prefers to operate outside framework agreements.

By value of identified call-offs, the Scottish Government's most valuable frameworks across this period were:

1. Technology Services 2 - RM3804 (£36m)

2. RM6013 Public Sector Vehicle Hire Solutions (£14m)

3. National Standardised Assessments in Support of the National Improvement Framework (£9m)

4. Framework Agreement for Interim IT Staff Services - National (£1.94m)

5. Framework Agreement for Interim Professional Staff Services - National (£1.77m)

By count of identified call-offs, the Scottish Government's most utilised frameworks were:

1. Framework Agreement for Interim Professional Staff Services - National (24 call-offs)

2. Framework Agreement for Interim IT Staff Services - National (22 call-offs)

3. G-Cloud 12 (8 call-offs)

4. Framework for the Provision of Support for Energy and Environment Related Sectors (3 call-offs)

5. Technology Services 2 - RM3804 (2 call-offs)

6. RM6013 Public Sector Vehicle Hire Solutions (2 call-offs)

7. G-Cloud 9 (2 call-offs)

Across this period, the Scottish Government published 89 frameworks of its own, with a maximum potential value of £4.15 billion. Again, this indicates that the Scottish Government prefers creating frameworks for other public bodies to use, rather than utilising them itself.

Below is a breakdown of the Scottish Government's IT, consultancy and FM contract awards from January 2016 - December 2021. This analysis was conducted using CPV codes and keyword searches, meaning the data may include some anomalous results.

IT & Software (CPV: 48000000, 72000000, 42960000)

From Jan 2016 - Dec 2021, the Scottish Government awarded approximately 296 IT & Software related contract awards, at a total award value of £270 million.

The above analysis shows 2021 was a record year for IT & Software awards - both in value and volume - with £115.4 million worth of contracts going to suppliers: a 120% rise on 2020's total of £52.3 million.

The largest suppliers in this sector - by total contract award value - were CGI IT UK Ltd (£43.5mn), Sopra Steria Ltd (£29.4mn), Leidos Innovations UK Ltd (£27.3mn), IBM United Kingdom Ltd (£27.1mn) and 2i Software Testing and Consultancy Services (£23mn).

The largest contracts in this period included:

Marketing, Recruitment, Consultancy (CPV: 79000000)

From Jan 2016 - Dec 2021, the Scottish Government spent approximately £143 million on consultancy-related services, spanning 432 contract awards.

Again, 2021 was a record year for consultancy-related contract awards, surging to £64 million total - a 1003% increase on 2016's £5.8 million total.

The largest suppliers in this sector - by total contract award value - were: Ipsos Mori UK Ltd (£16.1mn), Cello Signal Ltd (£11.6mn), National Centre for Social Research (£11.2mn), Venesky-Brown Recruitment Ltd (£9.95mn) and The Union Advertising Agency Ltd (£9.09mn).

The top contract awards in this period included:

Facilities Management *

The Scottish Government has only awarded 3 FM-related contracts since January 2016, but they totalled a substantial £402 million.

Nearly all of this value stems from a single contract - The Provision of Facilities Management Services - to Mitie in July 2021. This contract includes "hard and soft FM services", and has a "maximum contract duration of 10 years".

* This search was conducted using a combination of several dozen keywords, such as "facilities management", "hard fm", "soft fm", "estate management" etc."

*

The Scottish Government is a major procurer of goods and services in Scotland, and is one of the largest contracting authorities in the UK.

With this high-level information behind you, you'll be better placed to understand how and where you could sell your goods and services to this critical public body.

This profile only covers the surface of what Tussell's aggregated data platform can tell you about the public sector. With Tussell, you can analyse public spend, contract awards, favoured frameworks and more, helping you make more informed decisions and strategies when selling to the public sector.

Book a personalised demo with our team to see how Tussell can unlock public sector insights and opportunities for your business.

Find our other Procurement Profiles here:

• Department for Transport
• Department for Work and Pensions
• Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy
• Department of Health and Social Care
• Ministry of Justice
• Ministry of Defence
• Home Office
• HM Revenue & Customs