Priority 1

Delivery sub-action 1.1

Transport Scotland's Procurement and Contracts Team has engaged regularly with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders to ensure that we are procuring in line with current best practice.

Internally the procurement team led a number of activities to ensure Transport Scotland staff have been kept informed of any relevant changes in procurement policy and sharing of best practice. This includes liaison with the Information and Communication Technologies team, Transport Scotland Procurement Group Meetings (which are attended by senior staff across the organisation on a quarterly basis), regular training sessions to staff on relevant areas of procurement and updates through the staff intranet pages.

Externally, regular meetings have been held with key stakeholders including Scottish Water, Perth and Kinross Council, the Association for Consultancy and Engineering Scotland and the Civil Engineering Contractors Association, where best practice is discussed, as well as shared opportunities and challenges faced by these organisations.

The procurement team liaise with and give feedback to several areas of the Scottish Government, including the Procurement Collaborative Group, Procurement Cluster Group and the Scottish Procurement Policy Directorate.

Delivery sub-action 1.2

The procurement intranet pages were reviewed and updated on a regular basis during the reporting period. The Procurement Team use the intranet to publish procurement guidance, including our Procurement Toolkit. The Toolkit provides guidance that outlines Transport Scotland’s procurement processes and procedures, from inception through to award of the framework agreement or contract. The intranet is also used to communicate policy and advertise training.

Transport Scotland staff use the intranet pages to access information about:

• how to contact the Procurement Team
• procurement policy and procedures
• procurement advice and support
• delegated purchasing authority
• sustainable procurement
• tender receipt and opening
• our contracts database
• contract reference numbers
• procurement feedback
• training sessions in relevant areas

Delivery sub-action 1.3

Transport Scotland has a central database to record lessons learned across its projects and procurements to ensure lessons are readily shared across teams. Lessons learned are captured, reviewed, implemented and shared on a quarterly basis, ensuring procurement lessons learned are incorporated into future procurement activity and processes. Where relevant, training material is updated to highlight areas of good practice. The lessons learned summary document is approved by senior management every quarter before being shared with procurement managers across Transport Scotland.

Delivery sub-action 1.4

All spend within Transport Scotland requires a procurement strategy which must be approved by senior managers and either the Director of Purchasing and/or the Depute Director of Purchasing prior to undertaking a tender exercise. The procurement strategy includes a section on procurement risk that provides details of the risk owner, a description of the risk, an assessment of the probability and impact, the date of the assessment, mitigating actions and the next review date.

The procurement team maintain and update a corporate procurement risk register which is presented to senior management on a quarterly basis. This document is reviewed and updated monthly by the Procurement Team. Planned actions with allocated owners are included for each risk, which ensures that we mitigate the risks.

In addition, each directorate is responsible for maintaining their own risk register which must include project-specific procurement risks related to their business area. These procurement risks are monitored by the procurement team on a quarterly basis, with project teams required to present their key procurement risks to senior managers at the quarterly Procurement Group Meeting.