Superfast, ultrafast and gigabit capable broadband infrastructure - Open Market Review: request for information - January 2025

Annex C: Supporting evidence

In order to substantiate your existing and planned commercial coverage we require a complete and up to date Supporting Evidence Pack alongside your submission.

There are three essential areas against which the Scottish Government will evaluate to ensure overall viability of your planned investment:

technology - whether the technology you have deployed and intend to deploy is gigabit-capable and meets the technical criteria as outlined in Annex D

deliverability - whether your deployment plans are in line with the phases/premises passed outlined in your business plan, with the key build stages and processes outlined

commercial/financial viability - whether you have credible commercial plans such as sufficient access to capital and whether the drawdown of your funds aligns with your deployment plan and build programme

Please note - we do not expect you to produce additional tailored material to support your response. We believe you should have sufficient documentation readily available that can enable us to make a determination of credibility. We are also aware that you may have prepared information for the UK Government’s National OMR – this information can be reused for the purposes of this OMR where it pertains specifically to coverage and planned build in Scotland.

Initial completion of a Supporting Evidence Pack

(Where a supplier is a first time OMR respondent and does not have an existing Supporting Evidence Pack)

First time respondents should provide supporting evidence in two ways:

1. A completed Supporting Evidence Pack (this template is available by request at: gigabitomr@gov.scot) containing responses to each evidence request. Your responses may refer us directly to supplementary documentation (described below).

2. Supplementary documentation to substantiate your coverage claims such as network diagrams, business plan, deployment plans etc.

The supporting evidence you provide should correlate with your data coverage submission (Annex B).

An area to store supporting documentation, alongside your Supporting Evidence Pack, will be provided within the secure file portal set up by the Scottish Government when making your submission. Please contact: gigabitomr@gov.scot to confirm your intent to respond to this OMR and we will provide you with access to the secure file portal.

Once evaluated, your Supporting Evidence Pack will be baselined and can be used for subsequent responses to OMRs and/or PRs.

For future submissions, suppliers should review and refresh the information provided in their Supporting Evidence Pack but do not need to submit a new document to support their claims. The document is a live document which can be updated for each submission in line with any changes to a supplier’s corresponding data submission (Annex B).

Updating of a Supporting Evidence Pack

(Where a supplier has previously responded to an OMR and already has an existing Supporting Evidence Pack in place)

Suppliers are the owners of their Supporting Evidence Packs and supporting information folders and as such responsible for ensuring that all the information remains valid and up to date each time a submission is made to an OMR and/or PR.

Suppliers should ensure their data coverage and Supporting Evidence Pack remain valid and up to date. These should be reviewed alongside each submission, ideally ensuring information is no more than 6 months old. By completing a regular refresh of your content this will mitigate against outdated information, potential data misalignment and ensure that evaluators are able to assess your submission accurately.

This may reduce the number of additional evidence CQs that you are issued with. Where a Supporting Evidence Pack has not been updated for a long time, for example the ‘Date of response/update’ was displayed as December 2021, this would likely be out of date and no longer reflect your organisation’s current position.

A common theme noted from recent OMR processes, which resulted in additional CQs being issued, referred to requests to see updated financial and deliverability information in line with build progress and future plans noted within data submissions. For example, supplier X indicated previously they had secured £10m of additional funding to increase their existing footprint by 20,000 premises. Alongside updates in terms of the Design_Stage and Funding_Stage within data submissions, updated implementation and financial evidence (i.e. a calendar deployment plan) and how much capex has been drawn down/spent and remains available would be expected to be revised.

In addition, it may also be appropriate for suppliers to update their technical supporting evidence to reflect such things as increases in capacity and/or any resulting changes in design associated with delivery of their planned build, take-up, etc. to demonstrate continued gigabit capability.

Should suppliers require any additional support, in terms of updating, editing or archiving their Supporting Evidence Pack and/or their supporting information folders, please get in touch with us at: gigabitomr@gov.scot

We may be required to reclassify your coverage determinations previously determined as Gigabit Grey or Gigabit Under Review should the evidence no longer meet the requirements of a previous Subsidy Control Categorisation.

Please see below an outline of the process:

1. Supplier confirms intent to respond to OMR and/or PR, and if required requests UPRN template and signs Ordnance Survey PGSA Contractor Licence.

2. The Scottish Government sets up a secure file portal and provides login details to the supplier.

3. Supplier uploads their data coverage file and updates their Supporting Evidence Pack and full suite of information.

4. Scottish Government Evaluators assess the evidence provided and raise CQs where necessary. Following the determination of supplier’s treatment, the Supporting Evidence Pack for that submission is ‘baselined’.

5. Scottish Government archives the baselined version of your supporting evidence.

6. When responding to a subsequent OMR and/or PR the supplier provides a new data coverage file and reviews the baselined evidence pack. The supplier will either: a. Verify that the Supporting Evidence Pack remains valid and no changes have been made to the information within; or b. Amend some or all of the responses in line with any updates to coverage plans and refresh supporting documentation which is no longer valid. Any changes to the Supporting Evidence Pack must be recorded accordingly.

Additional guidance on how to complete the Supporting Evidence Pack will be provided when setting up the secure file portal.

If you require any additional support, guidance or clarification with any of this, please get in touch with us at: gigabitomr@gov.scot

If your future network plans are entirely reliant on public subsidy/interventions (e.g. vouchers) it may not be necessary to provide a complete set of supporting evidence alongside your data submission. Please contact: gigabitomr@gov.scot if you are unsure.