Public procurement strategy: Fairer Scotland duty assessment

Stage 3: Assessing the impacts and identifying opportunities to promote equality

The strategic aims of the Public Procurement Strategy for Scotland will be set at a high, national level. There is an expectation that the policies and initiatives that sit underneath will directly consider how they can address socio economic consequences in their implementation at sectorial and local levels. The Strategy itself will be clearly signposting that these policies and initiatives should be part of the focus for Public Procurement in Scotland. To support the Socio-economic position the Public Procurement Strategy for Scotland does support and encourage positive policies and initiatives:

Innovation

To support entrepreneurial activity there are objectives encouraging early supplier engagement and bringing innovation and an entrepreneurial approach into the Procurement Process where possible and appropriate. This was identified as important to include to support the current platforms for innovative engagement, and to allow for innovation and entrepreneurial ideas to be encouraged across the Public Procurement landscape.

SME's, Third Parties and Supported Businesses

Discussions on SME's, Third Parties and Supported Businesses were undertaken during the development of the Strategy. This is noted under Good For Business and employees specifically.

It was noted very early on in the development of the Strategy, that we needed to ask Business, including SME's Third Parties and Supported Business, what would be 'Good for Them', as the Strategy is structured around the Procurement 'Good For's'. To achieve this engagement was undertaken with Third Sector and Volunteer representatives, as well as a discussion at a strategy specific Business Services Association meeting on SME's. The strategic aims were set at a high at a national level, with the expectation that the policies and initiatives that sit underneath are directly considering how they can support more specifically.

Community Wealth building – including Fair work and community benefits

A number of discussions took place around Community Wealth Building (CWB) and how this should be incorporated into the Strategy. This is reflected under Good for Communities and society under Community Wealth Building – Fair Work First and Community benefits, all be it at a very high level to allow the policies and initiatives that this strategy supports to deliver equity access to community.

Engagement with Policy colleagues has also taken place to ensure that there is alignment between the Strategy and the policies around CWB, as well as discussions with the CWB team. Ensuring that this was included as part of the strategy would help improve the socio economic outlook of communities through benefits and fair work opportunities.

Sustainable Built Environment

Consideration is given under Supporting a sustainable built environment to Community Wealth building and housing. This will have an indirect impact in this area. There was an in-depth discussion on housing and how this should be incorporate into strategic objectives. The discussion moved the objective to a high, national level to cover all sectors and cover all buildings, not just housing. The policies and initiatives that sit underneath the Strategy will directly consider how they can address this specifically.

Emergency Situations

Socio-economic impacts are likely to occur when there are emergency situations, such as Covid. However the impacts will be specific to the emergency situations. To address this the Strategy includes a reference to emergency situations, and there will be specific impact assessments undertaken to assess the opportunities and challenges at the time of the emergency occurring.

Participation

The Public Procurement Strategy for Scotland has an objective to engage within the Communities to achieve participation. This will be implemented at a local level, with relevant impact assessments relevant to how participation will include all groups, including the identified young people.