Broadband infrastructure in Scotland: public review

Annex B: 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 we will evaluate to ensure overall credibility 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 C: Technical definition;

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. Suppliers should provide supporting evidence in two ways;

1. A completed supporting evidence pack (template provided) 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 A).

An area to store supporting documentation, alongside your supporting evidence pack, will be provided within the Scottish Government secure file portal when making your submission. Please contact gigabitomr@gov.scot to confirm your intent to respond to this PR 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 Open Market Reviews and/or Public Reviews. For future submissions, suppliers should review and refresh the information provided in their pack but do not need to submit a new pack 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 A).

Please see below an outline of the process;

1. Supplier confirms intent to respond to OMR and/or PR and the Scottish Government sets up a secure file portal.

2. Supplier uploads their data coverage file alongside a completed supporting evidence pack and full suite of information. This is required for all suppliers who have not completed the supporting evidence pack previously.

3. Scottish Government assesses the evidence provided and raises clarification questions where necessary. Following the determination of supplier's treatment, the supporting evidence pack for that submission is ‘baselined’.

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

5. 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.

Please note that the process outlined above is in effect as of 5th September 2022. The supporting evidence pack referenced in this Annex supersedes the previously issued Annex: Supporting Evidence Template. Prior to September 2022, suppliers were asked to provide a fresh set of supporting information and a completed supporting evidence template for each new submission. This new process aims to reduce the effort required for suppliers to provide updates to their submission on a regular basis.

Please note that suppliers who responded to OMRs or PRs prior to September 2022 using the previously issued supporting evidence template are still required to complete the new supporting evidence pack. While we do understand this may represent some duplication of work we hope that by moving across to this new format it will reduce supplier burden in the long run. This is in line with the approach adopted at a UK level.

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.