Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the question S2W-11414 answered on 9 November 2004. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

Officials are currently working on revised guidance on how to determine the appropriateness of various procurement routes and to underline the associated risks. The Scottish Public Finance Manual and the Construction Client Pack will be amended shortly.

Revised guidance on procurement and contract strategies was issued by HM Treasury’s Office of Government Commerce (OGC) in 2003. While it does not explicitly refer to construction management, it emphasises the need for risks to be identified and investigated, as such the revised guidance would tend to suggest that construction management should be used with caution.

It is the responsibility of chief executives and boards of individual agencies and non-departmental public bodies to decide whether, in its case, ministerial involvement is appropriate in key procurement decisions.

In April 1998, 16 staff, equating to approximately 50% of the Executive’s procurement division, were either full members of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS), or partially qualified. Currently the number of staff who are either members of CIPS, or partially qualified is 26, which represents 93% of the procurement functions staff within the Scottish Procurement Directorate. The CIPS is an institute incorporated by Royal Charter and is recognised by both the private and public sectors as the leading UK and international professional Institute for procurement professionals.

Key performance indicators for the procurement function are recorded value for money (VFM) savings and customer satisfaction feedback reports (completed by the client for every project). VFM savings consistently exceed direct procurement costs and over 90% of customer feedback reports record client satisfaction with the function’s work. Another measure of the success of these changes is that, since devolution, no complaint regarding compliance with EU procurement rules obligations has been upheld regarding a procurement overseen by procurement function staff. Gateway Reviews will also help assess the quality of procurement activity.

We have formed the Scottish Procurement Directorate, combining sources of advice and guidance on goods/services and works procurement. Within the directorate we now have a policy branch which provides specialist advice and guidance on EU public procurement rules. The Directorate has attended European Commission official-level meetings on public procurement, and has regular dialogue at a UK level on common UK procurement policy issues. The number of procurement function staff who are members of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply has been increasing for several years, due in no small measure to the introduction, five years ago, of in-house training provided by Glasgow College of Commerce. We have also published the Construction Client Pack, offering comprehensive guidance on works related procurement matters.

I refer the member to the question S2W-11414 answered on 9 November 2004. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

At present, the Scottish Executive has approximately 32 major projects (defined asproject with estimated value of at least £5 million) at various stages of the procurement process.

Information on PPP projects in Scotland, including those that are currently being procured, is available on the Scottish Executive Financial Partnerships Unit’s website at www.scotland.gov.uk/ppp on the project list.

Information relating to the procurement activities of other bodies is not held centrally, and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

The Civil Service remains a reserved matter, although the Civil Service Code makes it clear that civil servants in the devolved administrations owe their loyalty to those administrations rather than to the UK Government. This means that the efforts, skills and energy of departmental officials are directed towards the delivery of the Scottish Programme for Government designed to benefit the people of Scotland. It also means that whilst staff in the Executive areparticipants in the wider civil service reform agenda, we are also able to introduce reform and training programmes that are peculiar to Scottish dimension and which equip the staff to deal with the demands of supporting a Scottish administration.  The policies that the staff of the Executive are required to implement are those of the Executive not Westminster.