Contract Categories
Goods and services procured by the public sector are grouped into three distinct categories of commodity - A, B and C. These categories define how and by whom contracts are established.
John McClelland's Review of Public Procurement in Scotland (March 2006), defines the categories as follows:
Category A
Category A definition
- Goods or services are standard or of a similar nature across the largely common requirements of users in the public sector in Scotland.
- Where the utilisation of contracts established by a single central organisation would offer:
- a) improved cost through consolidated procurement volumes and value
- b) optimised use of scarce procurement resources and skills and to concentrate market intelligence information
- Where a single contracting interface facilitates the efficiency and competitiveness of suppliers.
More about Category A commodities
Category B
Central Government Centre of Procurement Expertise (CGCoPE) will have responsibility for leading, facilitating and supporting collaborative procurement across Central Government.
By working together the main objective is to establish a broad range of sector specific contracts (Category B) and arrangements designed to optimise benefits, savings and efficiencies for the Scottish Government, its Agencies and Non-Departmental Public Bodies.
Category B definition
- Fall outside scope of Category A allocated Goods/Services
- Where 2 or more Central Government organisations can collaborate
- Goods or services are standard or of a similar nature across the largely common requirements of users in Central Government organisations
- Where the utilisation of contracts established by a single organisation would offer improved cost through consolidated procurement volumes and value optimised use of scarce procurement resources and skills to concentrate market intelligence information
- Where a single contracting interface facilitates the efficiency and competitiveness of suppliers
More about Category B commodities
Category C
Where commodities and services are neither categorised as A (National Contracts) nor B (Sector Specific Contracts) then they are classified as Category C.
These contracts will be let for individual organisations, on a non-collaborative basis, as the requirements tend to be specialist or unique.
More about Category C commodities