The Scottish Government today released its consultation on implementation of:
- new EU procurement rules contained in EU Directives for public contracts, utilities and concessions, and
- the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014.
The Consultation is open until 30 April 2015 with
implementation thereafter expected between late 2015 and early
2016.
Separately, the UK Government released the response, on 30
January, to its 2014 consultation on transposing the new
Procurement Directives. In its consultation the UK Government
released a draft of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. This
draft transposition largely contained a direct pass down of the
Directive provisions and it is expected that the final draft of the
Public Contracts Regulations 2015 will not diverge from this
approach. The UK Government will now begin the process of
implementation and has indicated that the Public Contracts
Regulations will be introduced in early 2015.
The Scottish Government has taken a less direct approach and has
opted for consultation prior to drafting. The Scottish Government
has a significant focus on embedding sustainable procurement
practices and plans to unify its procurement approach by tying in
the already-drafted Procurement Reform Scotland Act 2014 and the
transposing of the new Directive into national law. Of interest,
within the Scottish Government consultation questions are posed
around introducing a new tribunal to hear procurement
challenges.
For further information, please contact
us.
Disclaimer
The material contained in this article is of the nature of general comment only and does not give advice on any particular matter. Recipients should not act on the basis of the information in this e-update without taking appropriate professional advice upon their own particular circumstances.
