Gillian passes to Pauline Macdonald: • Pauline’s background in procurement and supply chain • Pauline has been in Canada for the last 6 and half years • She was on the board of directors for WBE Canada helping women owned business specifically – the CEO of the company was working with govt to mandate that a certain percentage of all public sector bids went to women owned businesses - In Canada 5% of every single public sector contract has to go to indigenous suppliers and so she was fighting for the same for women owned businesses • WBE helped certify suppliers so they could use the WBE Canada logo so that when the public sector went out to tender, they could ask if they were certified – if a company is certified they know all the due diligence has been done on suppliers, it was definitely women led, certificates were valid 2 years however they can be taken off them at any time if they are in breach, WBE also ran courses to help with bidding • Old boys club easier to control and govern in public sector but very hard to do so in private sector – a lot of who you know rather than what you know • As a women owned business you have to go above and beyond to show your worth • To have a register of how many SMEs suppliers in Scotland would be helpful to get people signed up and show public sector these women owned businesses have gone through due diligence and they are certified it would minimize risk for them so more chance of winning business • WBE magazine – shows all the good work that has been done Gillian responds to Pauline commending opening the door to talent that wouldn’t get through the door by committing to making sure they are diverse Gillian passes to Ruth McElroy: • Small businesses contribute about 68bn to the Scottish economy • Public sector procurement statistics very patchy – scarce data of equality statistics when it comes to examining the experiences of women in procurement • Local authority spend show despite making up about 93% of entire business community, micro businesses only get less than 5% of procurement spend by value but largest companies get more than half – long way to go as big disproportionality here • A major policy directive of the current Scottish Government is Community Wealth Building – a commitment to growing and maintaining the wealth of local places • FSB have assessed for every pound that is spent with a small business roughly 67p of that goes straight back into the local community – whereas spending it at a large multinational only 40p of that goes into the community – real and tangible benefit to local areas in increasing procurement spend of local businesses • Barriers to procurement from a small business perspective o...