Taken as a whole, Scotland’s public sector, which includes councils and housing associations, has massive purchasing power. Helping them to make the most of this is the non-profit organisation Scotland Excel. 

As Hugh Carr, Scotland Excel’s director of strategic procurement explains, the organisation acts as the national centre of procurement expertise for local government. Scotland Excel recognises and promotes the vital role that suppliers to the public sector play in delivering value for money for the public, and it helps the sector to achieve its net zero aims and ambitions by ensuring that contracts reflect and help to achieve those aims.

“We represent 32 local authorities and our procurement portfolio amounts to over £2 billion. So that is a great incentive for suppliers to come forward to bid for public sector contracts. We all realise that the construction sector generally across Scotland is not having the easiest time of it right now, but a tremendous amount of good work is being done, and we are delighted to help to publicise that,” he comments.

As Carr explains, Scotland Excel recently held its Estates Management Expo which took place at the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow on 17 September 2024.

“The Expo was absolutely fantastic. We had a combination of suppliers coming along to speak to a range of buyers from councils and housing associations. It was a tremendous opportunity for suppliers to get in front of actual buyers and to demonstrate what they can offer,” Carr says.

“The Expo allowed us to showcase our full suite of end-to-end construction contracts, meaning members of ours can use our frameworks to design, build, improve and maintain their property portfolios. We believe this makes the process easier and more cost-effective for all involved.

“We also had a great programme of speakers who came along and spoke across a wide range of relevant areas, including new building techniques,” he notes.

One of the major new developments is that Scotland Excel is now building a small development fund into its social housing framework contracts. It is working with BE-ST, which stands for Built Environment – Smarter Transformation, to bring world-class innovation techniques and materials insights to Scottish contractors.

“BE-ST, formerly the Construction Scotland Innovation Centre, is working with us at Scotland Excel to utilise this development fund to help advance skills in the sector,” Carr says.

“One of the things that BE-ST is really good at is providing insights for contractors on modular offsite construction for social housing. This means housing delivery is more efficient, less wasteful and higher quality.

“We recently did a site visit with BE-ST, looking, for example, at new composite, laminate timber construction and the tools required to work with this. They are also working with partners to establish and validate the feasibility of the UK’s first commercially viable homegrown wood fibre insulation. All of this is very innovative and will help the sector to absorb new skills and techniques,” he comments.

He points out over the past five or six years Scotland Excel has seen the Scottish construction supply sector really stepping up to include meaningful social value elements for local communities. These are being included as an integral part of the bid process.

“We’re really seeing firms high- lighting the additional elements of community benefits and added value as part of delivering public services.

“We have seen this exemplified in a whole range of ‘above and beyond’ activities, such as encouraging work experience and work placements for local people.

“Many suppliers now go out of their way to introduce various elements of ‘back to work’ training for unemployed people, giving them a way of getting back to work.

“We have also seen suppliers initiating coastline clear-up activities or carrying out tree planting exercises. Some suppliers have supported local youth football teams or local veterinarian services.

“Others with longer-term contracts are offering apprenticeship programmes for locals. The value-add element in public sector contracts has become a key part of what so many suppliers now offer as part of their service bid. We now have more than 1000 suppliers bidding for Scottish public sector contracts. These include more than 400 construction and materials companies.

“Obviously, with a total combined procurement contract value of around £2 billion, we are keen to embed as much social value into each contract as is reasonable. It is very clear that contractors themselves are very keen to make these social value elements an integral and real part of their bid.

“Another core element of what we are bringing to procurement is that we are working in collaboration with councils and the Scottish Government, along with academia, as to what the buildings and estates of tomorrow will look like,” he comments.

Scotland Excel sits on the Construction Leadership Forum, which is chaired by Richard Lochhead, the minister for business.

“This involves all the trade representative bodies sitting around the table working on developing a coherent transition plan to get us to Net Zero, and to map out how the construction sector is going to develop in Scotland over the coming years,” he says. More and more construction companies are now investing in offsite construction. They are also looking at new techniques, new approaches to heating and insulation and so on.

“So, these are busy times, but there is a clear understanding across the sector of the challenges that face us and the working practices that we need to adopt. Everyone realises the importance of skills development for the sector. In this regard we see the skills development fund associated with our New Build Residential Construction framework becoming a real enabler for skills development across the sector.

“Our recently launched second generation £1.5 billion New Build Residential Construction framework strengthens our suite of construction frameworks. It’s the leading construction and property management portfolio within the Scottish public sector – helping public bodies to engage suppliers at every point in the construction cycle.

“The old four-year new build framework is coming to an end. So, we are taking on the lessons from that first-generation framework and, for example, tightening building requirements around energy efficiency and sustainability. This will help our sector develop the social housing that Scotland needs going forward.”

This article was first published in the Herald and written by Anthony Harrington.