Consultation on Scottish Standard Pre-Qualification Questionnaire
The Scottish Government has been working with key stakeholders from both the buyer and supplier communities to deliver a more standardised approach to pre-qualification procedures in public procurement. The draft questions are designed to be used with a single, national Scottish database for this information, ensuring that suppliers and buyers reduce the amount of duplicated effort and that the information requested from potential tenderers is both appropriate and proportionate to the contract in question.
The Scottish Government is looking for responses by 11th February 2011
Pre-qualification is a term used to describe the process used by public sector buyers to ascertain the suitability, capacity and capability of prospective suppliers. The inconsistency in the way pre-qualification process is undertaken by different public bodies, is in part due to the variety and complexity of the goods, services and works purchased by the public sector. The issue has been highlighted by suppliers as one of the greatest barriers to their participation in the public sector market.
As a result of listening to these concerns, the Scottish Government plans to introduce a standard pre-qualification database (the sPQQ system), which will include standardised questions for use by all public sector buyers, and will allow suppliers to answer these questions once, and store those answers online.
Click here for full details on how to input to the consultation.