Commercial and Procurement services supplier newsletters

June 2023 newsletter

Welcome to a slightly earlier edition of our Newsletter, brought forward to highlight the Council’s support of Fair Tax Week, where businesses and organisations that are proud to promote responsible tax conduct are recognised and the benefits to society are celebrated.

As always, we’ve included a list of current and upcoming tender opportunities and encourage you to register for alerts on Public Contract Scotland.

The Council attended the National Meet the Buyer event last month where we had the pleasure of meeting with a number and variety of suppliers. Some great conversations were held and the event provided an excellent opportunity for us to share with suppliers how we plan to meet Council priorities through procurement.

We “spotlight” one of our supported business suppliers, St Jude’s Laundry, where over 70% of employees have a disability or long-term health condition. We hope you find this article interesting both with regard to the opportunities for employees as well as the excellent work they undertake.

Again, we share some of our Community Benefit achievements, with a fun snapshot of a creative community benefit involving mini golf which you may see if you’re in our fine City during August so keep your eyes peeled!

As always, we want to build and maintain strong, effective relationships with our suppliers and are always keen to hear feedback from you as a potential or current suppliers as to how we can better achieve this. Should you have any comments or suggestions we would like to hear from you, details on how to contact us can be found at the end of the newsletter. Find earlier issues of our newsletters, we look forward to working with you.

If you would like to receive newsletter directly to your inbox, please email us and we will add you to our distribution list

supplierdevelopment@edinburgh.gov.uk.

Lynette Robertson

Interim Head of Commercial and Procurement Services

Tender opportunities

You can find details of future and current 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

V3 One Edinburgh - Home Based Care and Associated services - FPS deadline 13 June 2023
Heat network opportunity at Granton Waterfront, Edinburgh deadline 19 June 2023
CT2945 Legal services framework deadline 26 June 2023

Future opportunities

Consumer PR for Forever Edinburgh estimated publishing date June 2023
Contingency winter maintenance framework estimated publishing date June 2023
Emergency snow clearance estimated publishing date June 2023
Funeral Director service estimated publishing date June 2023
iPad repairs estimated publishing date June 2023
Repair and refurbishment of hooklift skips estimated publishing date June 2023
Traffic management estimated publishing date June 2023
Video and Music Streaming services for Mortonhall estimated publishing date June 2023
Void homes cleaning estimated publishing date June 2023
Accredited pathways for Education services estimated publishing date July 2023
Driver medicals taxi and PHC drivers estimated publishing date July 2023
Passenger Transport services framework agreement estimated publishing date July 2023
Care home generators estimated publishing date August 2023
Cleaning equipment estimated publishing date August 2023
Neurorehabilitation services estimated publishing date August 2023
Vehicle recovery and repair framework agreement estimated publishing date August 2023
Sandwich catering estimated publishing date September 2023

Fair tax week

Fair Tax Week, 8 to 18 June 2023, is described by the Fair Tax Foundation “as a recognition of the businesses and organisations that are proud to promote responsible tax conduct, and a celebration of the positive contribution this makes to society”. The aim is to turn the thinking around from tax as a burden to thinking of tax as crucial to the very valuable public services it helps funds. Some examples are

education
care
flood defence
roads
policing
housing.

Tax also plays a crucial part in delivering the central objectives in City of Edinburgh Council’s business plan to “create good places to live and work in Edinburgh. Take all the local actions needed to end poverty in Edinburgh. Work to deliver a net zero city by 2030”.

The Fair Tax Mark certification scheme was launched in 2014 and seeks to encourage and recognise organisations that pay the right amount of corporation tax at the right time. Alongside the ‘Mark’ there is also a Fair Tax pledge, designed for individual citizens and sole traders, the aim of which is to encourage people and small organisations to demonstrate their commitment to ‘playing by the rules’. The Council is committed to establishing Edinburgh as a leading city for work practices and socially responsible business, and to encouraging businesses and individuals to commit to paying fair tax. This commitment is directly aligned to the Council’s business plan and work we are separately undertaking to further embed Fair Work principles into the Council’s procurement activity. The Council looks forward to working with its suppliers to help promote the adoption of Fair Tax practices and encourages businesses of all sizes to consider adopting this certification.

Read more about Fair Tax and Fair Tax Accreditation.

National meet the buyer event

Colleagues from Commercial and Procurement services represented the Council at the National Meet the Buyer event, held at the EICC on 17 May.

Organised by the Supplier Development programme, the event was attended by 1,396 suppliers of which 862 were Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs). This offered suppliers an opportunity to meet procurement teams, buyers, and supply chains to learn about upcoming projects and tender opportunities locally, nationally within Scotland and right across the UK.

The event was a tremendous success, and it was a fantastic opportunity for us to meet so many suppliers on the day in person. In total, 195 Scottish SMEs came to talk to us and find out how they can work with the Council. This gave us a chance to let suppliers know how we plan to meet the Council priorities of net zero, fair work practices, innovation, and community benefits, and allowed us to let suppliers know about upcoming opportunities and sign post them to contacts and helpful information.

Lynette Robertson, Interim Head of Commercial and Procurement services, was a guest speaker, highlighting shared outcomes and joint working, and shared our priorities and the Council’s business plan, with sustainability and fair work practices at the heart of what we do.

The Council’s procurement team hold a monthly supplier drop in, on the first Friday of every month. If you would like to make an appointment to attend, please email

procurement.delivery@edinburgh.gov.uk.

Supplier spotlight - St Jude's Laundry

St Jude’s Laundry is a supported business, where over 70% of employees have a disability or long-term health condition. The supported business model allows this supplier to provide any additional support required by these employees in order to ensure fulfilling working lives.

Supported and non-supported staff work side by side in all areas of production and have the same access to learning and development opportunities as well as career progression. Staff at St. Jude’s pride themselves on delivering a high-quality service in a supportive inclusive environment.

St Jude's Laundry was founded by Capability Scotland in 1963 and is now part of Forth Sector. They celebrated a 60th anniversary this year and are immensely proud of where we have come from and our ambition for the future.

St Jude’s offer a bespoke, hand finished, commercial laundry service, providing excellent attention to detail within a personalised end to end service delivery.

Operating from a purpose-built state-of-the-art laundry at Duddingston, the only industrial laundry in Edinburgh to their knowledge, located only 15 minutes from the city centre. The laundry holds the Royal Warrant and has retained this for over 25 years, this means that items are laundered to the standard required by the Royal Household!

Whether you are a 5-star hotel, Michelin starred restaurant or a youth hostel, we can work to your timeline, whatever you require and whenever you need it.

When using our services, you help us to support local people with disabilities with the added bonus of your company meeting its corporate social responsibility objectives whilst providing many other community benefits.

Everyone at St Jude’s Laundry plays a key role in our forward momentum, creating a vibrant and professional working environment. The benchmark is excellence, and our team believes that everyone deserves a chance to shine and improve their lives. If you are a St Jude's Laundry customer you will not only be getting a first-rate service, but you will also be helping local people break down barriers and find meaningful employment.

To find out more please email Dean Beaton

dean.beaton@forthsector.org.uk.

Community benefit - AC Whyte

Suppliers on the Housing Capital Works framework are working with four of our special school pupils to produce a mini golf hole based on an iconic Edinburgh landmark. AC Whyte are working with pupils from Kaimes to produce a representation of the castle rock. The mini golf holes will be on display in August 2023 as part of Edinburgh Fringe so keep your eyes peeled.

This hole represents the volcanic rock that Edinburgh Castle sits on, built from materials AC Whyte use on site. It’s a work in progress and there’s still a lot of work to do but I’m sure you’ll see how proud the pupils are of their efforts so far.

Supplier drop in sessions

Monthly virtual engagement sessions run by Commercial and Procurement services. If you’re interested in working in, or becoming part of, the supply chain that delivers goods, services or works in Edinburgh or if you want to know what support is available, email us

procurement.delivery@edinburgh.gov.uk.

Useful resources

Feedback

We're keen to receive your feedback on how future newsletters might be improved. Email us with any suggestion for future articles

cagmanagement@edinburgh.gov.uk.