Commercial and Procurement services supplier newsletters

April 2024 newsletter

Welcome to the April edition of our newsletter.

This issue begins with an ask from us. We want to hear from you about your experience of working with the Council, your feedback is important and valued and we’ll use this to help develop our Procurement Strategy for 2025 onwards so please do let us know your thoughts.

This newsletter contains information, resources and support available to suppliers to successfully bid for tender opportunities. We highlight the NetZeroToolkit, a free resource from Edinburgh Science, which supports businesses to build an effective carbon reduction strategy. There are links to procurement guidance developed by the Energy Saving Trust as well as advice on collaboration for tendering larger contracts.

You can read about our monthly supplier drop-in sessions, and as always, we’ve included a list of upcoming tender opportunities and encourage you to register for alerts on Public Contract Scotland website.

We look forward to working with you.

Lynette Robertson

Head of Commercial and Procurement Services

Procurement Plan 2025 and beyond - Your feedback matters!

The Council has big ambitions for Edinburgh, but year on year financial constraints are prevalent. This brings challenges and opportunities to work with others to focus our resources in a way that supports the Council to deliver its business plan priorities on ending poverty, creating good places to live and work in Edinburgh and working to deliver a net zero city by 2030.

Later this year we will be consulting on our new procurement strategy for 2025 and beyond. There are however other areas which we are reviewing ahead of this including our objectives on community benefits and how it can support community wealth building and climate change, we will also be reviewing our approach to contract management.

We would like to hear from you directly, on your experience of working as a supplier with the Council and areas you think we could improve to support better outcomes, details of any best practice approaches you have identified from working with other organisations and any general feedback on engagement from pre-tender to contract exit planning.

If you have feedback on the topics above or others please email us

supplierdevelopment@edinburgh.gov.uk.

The Net Zero toolkit

Wondering how to start your own net zero journey? Looking to become procurement ready with a sustainability strategy? Seeking ways to address your supply chain emissions?

The NetZeroToolkit is a free online resource from Edinburgh Science that supports organisations of any size – but particularly small-to-medium enterprises and microbusinesses – to build effective sustainability strategies.

NetZeroToolkit users will be guided through eight core components and provided with a comprehensive set of question prompts, supporting notes and resources to help them to get on the road to net zero.

Currently over 600 businesses across Scotland are signed up and using the toolkit with many thousands more dropping by to use the resources within. Join them today!

This is not an endorsement of the NetZeroToolkit which is only one of the many free to access Climate Change tools available.

Bid better for public sector tenders guidance

The Energy Saving Trust has produced a practical procurement guide for small businesses to help in tendering for public sector contracts in the energy and renewables marketplace. Produced by the Scottish Government and other public bodies, the guide is designed to improve understanding of key topics within procurement and the tendering process. A positive step forward for those involved in public sector procurement.

Co-operative Development Scotland – Consortium Model of Bidding for Bigger Contracts

Collaborating with other businesses can bring a number of benefits such as enhanced profile, shared resources and knowledge, and the reduction of costs and risk when exploring new markets and innovations. Increasingly, businesses are also coming together to access larger contracts. A consortium co-operative is one of the options open to businesses considering collaboration.

On Wednesday 28 August 2024 Co-operative Development Scotland is delivering an awareness-raising webinar that will introduce the consortium co-operative model for businesses interested in tendering for bigger contracts in collaboration with other businesses.

To find out more and book this event please visit Co-operative Development Scotland - the consortium model of bidding for bigger contracts.

Supplier drop in sessions

Did you know that our Commercial and Procurement services team runs monthly virtual engagement sessions? These are an excellent opportunity to ask any burning questions you may have if you’re interested in working in, or becoming part of, the supply chain that delivers goods, services or works to the Council. If you’d like to drop-in please email

procurement.delivery@edinburgh.gov.uk.

Tender opportunities

You can find details of current and future contract opportunities with the Council on the Public Contract Scotland website. You will also find future opportunities for noting interest and engaging in the development where appropriate, we expect these will include the following.

Current opportunities

 Future opportunities

  • Cyber Assurance Framework Agreement, estimated publishing date April 2024
  • Forestry and Arboricultural Works, estimated publishing date April 2024
  • Ross Fountain Repair & Maintenance, estimated publishing date April 2024
  • Housing Capital Works Framework, estimated publishing date April / May 2024
  • New Build Housing Framework, estimated publishing date May 2024
  • Decriminalised Parking and Traffic Enforcement (DPE) Services, estimated publishing date July / August 2024 
  • Residential, Special Schools and Supported Accommodation Framework, estimated publishing date August 2024

Useful resources