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Social care procurement: advertising and competition SPPN 10/2008

Scottish Procurement Directorate

The Scottish Procurement Directorate has developed a policy note on procurement of social care services which ‘supercedes' the guidance note produced in 2007 for Supporting People which can be seen on the Scottish Government website.

The new policy note starts off by acknowledging that social care services fall within Part B services and are therefore not subject to automatic tendering as other services purchased by public bodies are. The note considers the requirement to advertise contracts and what this might entail as well as the situations where an authority may legitimately decide not to open up a contract to any form of competition.

The policy note mentions framework agreements in passing but does not go into detail about what they or other alternatives to open tendering processes might look like.
The policy note effectively places a health warning on the use of e-auctions for social care services.