Commercial and Procurement services supplier newsletters

April 2023 newsletter

In this issue of our quarterly newsletter, we have taken the opportunity to highlight some of the positive Community Benefits that have been delivered by our suppliers as part of our existing contracts, to the benefit of communities across the City. It’s great to see realisation of these positive benefits which we hope you will find both interesting and inspirational.

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

There is a reminder of the upcoming national Meet the Buyers event to be held in May, and, in order to support our suppliers to become “tender ready” there is an overview of the Supplier Development Programme as well as our ongoing ‘Supplier Drop In’ sessions which we hope you find beneficial.

An important point to note is the update for suppliers on the Council’s commitment to the Real Living Wage for future tenders/contracts with the Council.

Strong, effective relationships with our suppliers are key to ensuring positive results for all. We are always keen to hear feedback from potential and current suppliers as to how we can better engage with the market or support suppliers throughout the life-cycle of a contract, 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 or using the feedback link above.

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

Framework agreement for hire of operated plant and vehicles for roads operations deadline 11 April 2023
CT1201 - Flexible framework agreement for provision of sports and physical activities for children and young people deadline 25 April 2023

Future opportunities

Passenger transport - escorted and unescorted estimated publishing date April 2023
River sensors estimated publishing date April 2023
Accredited Pathways for Education services estimated publishing date April 2023
Legal services framework estimated publishing date May 2023
iPad repairs estimated publishing date May 2023
Repair and refurbishment of hooklift skips estimated publishing date May 2023
Traffic management estimated publishing date May 2023
Void homes cleaning estimated publishing date June 2023
Consumer PR for Forever Edinburgh estimated publishing date June 2023
Funeral Director service estimated publishing date June 2023
Video and Music Streaming Services for Mortonhall estimated publishing date June 2023

The Real Living Wage (RLW)

As of 1 March 2023 the Council requires all contractors tendering for contract opportunities to agree to pay those workers involved in delivering a contract for the Council at least the RLW currently £10.90 per hour.

Supporting the adoption of Fair Work First principles and payment of the RLW is part of the Council's business plan to end poverty in the city by 2030. It is also part of the Council’s response to the work of the Edinburgh Poverty Commission to address in work poverty.

The RLW is a voluntary minimum rate, set by the Living Wage Foundation and the calculation is based on evidence around living standards and a basket of goods and services reflecting everyday living costs. The RLW is higher than the national minimum wage.

The Council’s commitment recognises that better rewarded staff who are treated fairly and well led are more likely to deliver a high quality of service. For this reason, the Council has become an accredited living wage employer and encourages you to do the same to demonstrate your commitment to ending work poverty.

Community benefits - Recent highlights

We wanted to take the opportunity to highlight some of our recently delivered community benefits. By suppliers pro-actively working with the Council as part of their contractual commitment to identify realistic, creative opportunities we have been able to realise significant benefits for our citizens and communities. Small or large, all community benefits provide valuable resource to some of our most disadvantaged and make real differences to peoples quality of life and environment in which they live. In turn, suppliers gain a huge sense of achievement and pride in knowing that by successfully delivering their contracted benefit provision they have made real positive impact, as well as an opportunity to ‘showcase’ what they can do for local communities which in turn is expected to be of benefit to the supplier. Some examples include:

In excess of £400,000 of financial donations to partners over last 18 months including The Fuel Bank Foundation, One City Trust and Edinburgh School Uniform Bank
Approximately £130,000 of ‘in kind’ work undertaken in last 18 months by suppliers to support community centres
South Bridge resource centre resurfacing the car park by Maclay Civil Engineering
Support for Gilmerton community centre under way with P1 Solutions developing their community garden
Mentoring support being provided via Career Ready and MCR Pathways by NSL, Harley Haddow, Urban Union and Robertson

Meet the Buyer – Wednesday 17 May 2023 10am – 4pm

Whatever the size of your business, you will meet procurement teams, buyers and supply chains to learn about upcoming projects and tender opportunities locally, nationally within Scotland and right across the UK, at Meet the Buyer 2023.

Now in its 14th annual year, Scotland's national Meet the Buyer event is taking place as a fully in person event at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre on 17 May 2023. Colleagues will be on hand to answer any queries you may have. Book your place and we look forward to seeing you there!

Supplier Development Programme (SDP)

SDP helps businesses that have little or no experience of tendering and are often too small to have dedicated bid / tender resources to contemplate bidding for public sector contracts. SDP aims to help such businesses become what we call “tender ready” for contracts, which improves their prospects when competing throughout Scotland where there is an annual public spend of £13.3 billion. In conjunction with the local authority, SDP delivers this support through a programme of free training and events which can be booked via the SDP website.

By assisting businesses to become tender ready for public procurement, SDP improves all-round efficiency, sustainability, and market potential – and supports local wealth creation. SDP’s key objectives are to

raise awareness of opportunities arising from public sector spend
provide training and support via traditional classroom style, face-to-face, or via webinar, in all aspects public sector tendering
improve the tender readiness of local suppliers through early intervention and early engagement
support our member organisations to meet the sustainable procurement duty
promote links and integrate with other government business support services.

You can engage with SDP by registering and logging in, where you can learn more about booking training and events, and access additional resources.

Supplier drop in sessions

In March 2020, the Council launched a Sustainable Procurement strategy, putting sustainability at the heart of our procurement programme for the next five years. As part of this, we want to work more closely with key stakeholders and to build on existing networks to improve engagement and collaboration with communities, businesses, third sector organisations and other partners.

Two key objectives of the strategy are to

make procurement spend more accessible to local small businesses and third sector
increase community benefits delivered by suppliers.

To support these objectives, our Commercial and Procurement service introduced a new opportunity for local suppliers to engage in public procurement. 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, please email us to book into the monthly (virtual) engagement diary to talk with our team

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.