Section 15 – Procurement strategy
32.This section describes the circumstances in which a contracting authority is required to prepare a procurement strategy and what, as a minimum, it must contain.
33.Before the start of any financial year in which a contracting authority considers that it may have a total expenditure on regulated procurements (see section 2) exceeding £5,000,000 (excluding VAT) it is required to prepare a procurement strategy or review an existing procurement strategy and make any necessary changes before the start of the next financial year.
34.Subsection (3) applies if, before the start of its financial year, a contracting authority did not prepare a procurement strategy but after the start of that financial year it becomes apparent to a contracting authority that its total expenditure on public contracts for that financial year is likely to be greater than £5,000,000. It is required, as soon as practicable, to prepare a procurement strategy or review and revise its existing strategy as necessary, as soon as reasonably practicable after it becomes aware of the likelihood of the spend over £5,000,000. However, there is nothing to preclude a contracting authority from reviewing and making revisions to its procurement strategy at any additional interval as it considers appropriate.
35.Section 15(5) describes what a procurement strategy must include as a minimum and provides a power for the Scottish Ministers to make an order subject to the negative procedure specifying other matters that a procurement strategy should address (see sections 15(5)(e) and 44(3)).
36.Section 15(6) provides an order-making power for the Scottish Ministers to amend the threshold value at which a procurement strategy is required to be prepared or reviewed. By virtue of section 44(2) such an order is subject to the affirmative procedure.
