Procurement

The college is a member of Advanced Procurement for Universities and Colleges (APUC) Ltd which works with universities and colleges in setting up framework agreements on behalf of the Further and Higher Education sectors in Scotland.

When possible, we use existing agreements competitively tendered through Scottish and UK procurement consortiums/centres of excellence. This includes access to frameworks from the other national and sectoral centres of expertise in Scotland and the UK.

When established agreements are not available, we procure through competitive tendering, using Public Contracts Scotland (PCS or PCS-Tender), ensuring compliance with the following thresholds:

For PCS, suppliers are required to complete a brief self-registration process through the portal.

Our procurement strategy sets out the procurement direction of the college. We review and update this in line with local, regional, sectoral and national procurement initiatives.

A copy of the most recent Procurement Strategy can be accessed here.

The College is not formally required to produce an Annual Report; However, this report is prepared to demonstrate good practice.

A copy of the most recent Annual Report can be accessed here.

“Sustainable public procurement aims to make the best use of public money, helping us to achieve our overarching purpose and strategic objectives.

The sustainable procurement duty requires that before a contracting authority buys anything, it must think about how it can improve the social, environmental and economic wellbeing of the area in which it operates, with a particular focus on reducing inequality.

The Sustainable Procurement Duty is referred to in the Public Procurement Strategy for Scotland, and sustainable procurement is central to multiple of the strategic objectives. Prominent examples include:

• whole life costing: the promotion of life-cycle approaches to establishing value for money in procurement assessment processes
• food security: ensuring high standards of animal welfare, sustainable production and waste reduction through procurement processes to improve community health, wellbeing and education”

In compliance with the Act, where relevant, the College will consider the environmental, social and economic issues relating to all regulated procurements and how benefits can be accrued, on a contract-by-contract basis by taking proportionate actions to involve SMEs, third sector bodies and supported businesses in our procurement activities and in so doing, benefit not only the College but the wider Lanarkshire Colleges region.

We are committed to achieving sustainable procurement duty by:

• In compliance with the Act the College will consider, before undertaking a procurement, whether it is relevant and proportionate to include a question on fair work practices along with the other relevant criteria.
• Where directly relevant, it shall make use of the appropriate standards and labels in its procurements to take account of fair and ethical trading considerations as well as considering equivalent offerings from suppliers that can demonstrate they can meet the specified criteria without necessarily having the specific certification.
• ensuring all potential contractors understand and sign up to the APUC Sustain Supply Chain Code of Conduct or have an equivalent policy
• ensuring that all suppliers once contracted with SLC, once an invite has been sent, to register on the APUC supply chain management (SCM) tool. This has been created to assist with planning SCM meetings and is a repository to upload and host any relevant documentation from the meetings for future reference.

You can download our general terms and conditions for ordering and purchasing.

Specific terms and conditions for major contracts are supplied to suppliers as necessary.

We issue purchase orders for all requirements. You should not provide any goods, services or works without this.

The Supplier Development Programme (SDP) is a partnership of local authorities, the Scottish Government and other public bodies that work together to provide business support in all aspects of tendering. There are training courses for businesses looking to tender for public contracts in Scotland. There’s more information about this on the Supplier Development Programme website.

See also The Supplier Journey for guidance on how to bid for public sector contracts.