New College Lanarkshire is committed to obtaining value for money in all of its procurement activities and ensuring that the procurement of goods, services and works adheres to the College’s Procurement Strategy and Financial Regulations. The Procurement Strategy, endorsed by the Senior Management Team, sets out the procurement direction of the College.
Procurement is based within the Finance Department of New College Lanarkshire. Procurement is responsible for supporting the College in the following activities:
The College is legally required to have and maintain a Procurement Strategy as part of the requirements for the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014, which provides a national legislative framework for sustainable public procurement that supports Scotland’s economic growth through improved procurement practice.
The strategy is subject to ongoing development and shall evolve in line with sectorial and national procurement initiatives.
In parallel with publication of the Procurement Strategy, New College Lanarkshire is required to publish Annual Procurement Reports which summarises procurement activities carried out during the same period.
The Procurement Strategy covers the period from 1st August 2023 to 31st July 2024. The Annual Report summarises the activities that have been carried out in delivering New College Lanarkshire’s Procurement Strategy. We are required to review our Procurement Strategy on an annual basis, prior to the commencement of our financial year, to ensure that it remains fit for purpose. We published an update to our Procurement Strategy in December 2022 and our Annual Report reports the progress against the Strategy, covering the period 1st August 2021 - 31st July 2022.
New College Lanarkshire is a member of Advanced Procurement for Universities and Colleges (APUC) Ltd which is the Procurement Centre of Expertise. APUC Ltd works collaboratively with Universities and Colleges in setting up Framework Agreements on behalf of the higher and further education sectors in Scotland.
New College Lanarkshire where possible will utilise existing agreements competitively tendered through Scottish and UK Procurement Consortiums/Centres of Excellence. This includes access to Frameworks from the Scottish Public Sector Contracts, established by Scottish Procurement (Scottish Procurement and Commercial Directorate).
Where agreements are not available the College will follow the internal guidelines to procure via Competitive Tendering, compliant to the processes determined by the thresholds detailed in the following Tendering Policy.
New College Lanarkshire advertises all tenders above £50,000 through Public Contracts Scotland advertising portal. The advertising portal may also be used to smaller value requests for quotation.
New College Lanarkshire will publish details of all the contracts in place via the Hunter Contracts database, a link to which is provided below:
All of the contracts available to College can be accessed by finding the relevant commodity tab within the APUC Collaborative Procurement Database and then clicking on specific contracts to obtain detailed information. A search facility is also provided.
Each entry contains key information on the contract including, award mechanism, contact details, and contract start/end date. Please contact Andrew Mulvay (Andrew.Mulvay@nclan.ac.uk) if you require further information, such as Buyers Guides.
Sustainable Procurement is defined as ‘a process whereby organisations meet their needs for goods, services, works and utilities in a way that achieves value for money on a whole life basis and generates benefits not only to the organisation, but also to society, the economy and the environment’. New College Lanarkshire is committed to achieving sustainable procurement by:
The College operates an electronic ordering system which directly interfaces with the College financial package TechOne. The service allows routine purchases to be processed electronically from requisition to payment. The College endeavours to ensure that all requisitions raised are electronic and that TechOne is used consistently across the College.
The College utilise Public Contracts Scotland – Tender online electronic Tendering system, for all requirements above £50,000 for services and goods and above £2,000,000 for works.
New College Lanarkshire have adopted Contract Management Processes across the supply base. Risk/Spend analysis is carried out to identify key contracts which the College will effectively managed.
Contract Management is necessary to:
Suppliers and individuals who believe that maladministration has occurred either in the procurement process, the award of contracts by the college or in the delivery of service by contractors should write to or email the College Vice Principal (Resources).
We aim to ensure that all of our procurement processes are open, fair and transparent.
Organisations that submit tenders will be provided with feedback in relation to their bid and the evaluated scores that they achieved. This feedback will be provided in an award decision letter which included information on how a bidder has scored in comparison to the successful bidder and the areas in which their tender has scored less well. This should provide bidders with sufficient information to assist organisations to improved their submissions for any future tenders.
An organisation can request further feedback from us if they feel that the award decision letter does not fully explain the reasons for them not being awarded the contract.
The letter and any further feedback will provide bidders with all the information they need should be minded to challenge the college's decision.
If an organisation is dissatisfied with the standard of our response, action or lack of action or others working on their behalf they can complain by submitting a complaint through our complaints process.
If you have any questions regarding any element of Procurement within New College Lanarkshire, please direct your queries to the person listed below.
Andrew Mulvay - Supply Chain Manager
E: Andrew.Mulvay@nclan.ac.uk
T: 07956756474
