Correspondence between Scottish Government and ACER International (UK) Ltd: FOI release

Information requested

Your request contains three queries around the decision not to award ACER the phase two National Standardised Assessments for Scotland contract. You specifically asked for a copy of correspondence between the Scottish Government and ACER regarding:

• the ending of the contract and the management of the data that had been produced by ACER
• discussions with ACER as to whether they would be bidding for a renewed contract
• reasons why they did not continue to provide the SNSA assessments

Response

In relation to your first request, please find attached (in Appendices C to F) all correspondence relating to data management and transfer as part of ACER’s exit as the supplier of the Scottish National Standardised Assessments (SNSA).

In relation to your third query, ACER’s bid for the phase two contract was not successful following a public procurement exercise, assessing both price and technical criteria relating to the bids received. We believe that the following documentation is relevant in this regard:

• Contract notice (already in the public domain View Notice - Public Contracts Scotland).
• Contract award notice (already in the public domain at this link: View Notice - Public Contracts Scotland).
• Unsuccessful tender letter (Appendix A) and the related scoring sheet (Appendix B) for ACER’s bid for the phase two National Standardised Assessments for Scotland contract.

Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you (bullets 1 and 2 above). If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy. Please also note that, exemptions apply to Appendices A to F under section 33(1)(b) of FOISA, relating to substantial prejudice to commercial interests, and section 38(1)(b) of FOISA, relating to the protection of personal information. We have applied the public interest test to both of these exemptions, and have concluded that sharing third party information in this case, or providing further insight into the supplier’s unique assessment product, would likely dissuade potential suppliers from bidding for Scottish Government contracts in the future. It is therefore not in the interest of achieving good value for the public purse to share this information. You will also note that we have redacted various parts of these documents given that they were not within the scope of your request.

Finally, as you may already be aware, all major contracts awarded by the Scottish Government follow a strict public procurement process. That being the case, any discussions between SG officials and ACER around the ending of the ACER contract or contract renewal would not have been appropriate. As such, in relation to your second query around “discussions with ACER as to whether they would be bidding for a renewed contract”, following an extensive search of our internal records and the emails of individuals working on the assessments project within the timeframe you stated, we have been unable to find any such correspondence. This is therefore a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI 202400396851 - Information Released - Annex

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